Australia and England are both multicultural countries where hundreds of languages are spoken. However, in both, levels of language learning at school are worryingly low.

Australia has seen a major downturn in language learning. In 2021, fewer than 10% of students in year 12 – the final year of compulsory education – were studying a language.

Exam entry figures for England show the numbers of young people taking languages at GCSE is stabilising to some degree. However, since 2004, when a language subject was made optional after the age of 16, there has been a decrease of 35%.

In both countries, the lack of a strong language learning culture contributes to low enrolment and achievement rates in foreign language education. That both countries are English-speaking also leads to the idea that there is limited use in learning additional languages, because English is so widely spoken worldwide.

This has resulted in the perception that inhabitants of both Australia and England are poor language learners.

Appetite to learn

Our research suggests this is not necessarily true. There is an appetite for language learning among young people in both countries, along with support from their parents. However, challenges such as harsh grading and teacher recruitment problems have meant this doesn’t always translate into full classrooms.

As fewer young people take languages after the ages of 14 and 16, there is a knock-on effect at degree level and beyond. This affects the supply of new language teachers.

Australian educators consistently argue that making language learning compulsory for longer is vital to increasing participation in language subjects. However, research by one of us (Abigail) in England indicates that students who choose to study a language are more motivated than those for whom it is compulsory.

European languages have traditionally dominated language teaching in both countries. However, in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, GCSE entries in “other modern languages” – any language other than French, German, Irish, Spanish and Welsh – are rising. In Wales, government initiatives are attempting to secure the Welsh language learning pipeline from early years all the way to university, in addition to making Welsh more visible in media and daily life.

Numerous attempts have been made to improve Australia’s Asian language capacities, in an effort to strengthen regional ties. Despite over $337 million AUD (adjusted for inflation) of investment in government programs, the past 20 years have seen a continued decline in numbers studying Asian languages there. Only Korean has seen any growth – but this can mostly be attributed to the rise of K-pop, rather than any Australian government initiative.

This musical phenomenon, along with other cultural exports such as the Netflix series Squid Game and the film Parasite, has seen interest in the Korean language grow globally.

Both England and Australia could use these successes to capitalise on language learning potential. Some Australian schools are already making the most of this wave of Korean popularity, called hallyu, to entice as many students as possible to the subject – but the language is not available as a school subject in England.

Australia is also taking steps to revitalise the teaching of Indigenous languages and to ensure their survival with future generations. Prior to colonisation, more than 250 Indigenous languages and 800 dialects were spoken throughout Australia. But a 2013 survey found only approximately 123 were in use, with only 12 being considered “strong”.

Australian primary students in particular have expressed a desire to learn Indigenous languages. This desire was also reflected in Louisa’s PhD data collection, with one university student saying: “If we have a look [at the languages spoken] internally, before we look externally, I think we’ll find a lot more answers, because there’s a wealth of resources here.”

This reflects a growing appetite among young people in Australia to learn Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages as part of a more locally grounded education.

Through our work, we feel strongly that educators should listen more closely to what students are saying they want, rather than taking the well-worn route of telling them to learn a language for economic or strategic reasons.

By listening more closely to the interests and goals of young people in schools, we can start to provide teaching which supports their need for autonomy – even if, in the short-to-medium term, systemic problems such as the supply of teachers and resources also need to be addressed.

Students need to see the benefits of learning a language for themselves, and have the opportunity to connect with a language on their own terms. Louisa’s PhD thesis asked language students in Australia about improving language participation. As one participant answered, students need to realise “what a cool life they’re going to have from knowing a language”.

Abigail Parrish, Lecturer in Languages Education, University of Sheffield; Annamaria Paolino, Lecturer/Researcher in Languages Education, Edith Cowan University, and Louisa Field, Languages education researcher, University of Sydney

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Quantum entanglement — once dismissed by Albert Einstein as “spooky action at a distance” — has long captured the public imagination and puzzled even seasoned scientists.

But for today’s quantum practitioners, the reality is rather more mundane: entanglement is a kind of connection between particles that is the quintessential feature of quantum computers.

Though these devices are still in their infancy, entanglement is what will allow them to do things classical computers cannot, such as better simulating natural quantum systems like molecules, pharmaceuticals or catalysts.

In new research published today in Science, my colleagues and I have demonstrated quantum entanglement between two atomic nuclei separated by about 20 nanometres.

This may not seem like much. But the method we used is a practical and conceptual breakthrough that may help to build quantum computers using one of the most precise and reliable systems for storing quantum information.

Balancing control with noise

The challenge facing quantum computer engineers is to balance two opposing needs.

The fragile computing elements must be shielded from external interference and noise. But at the same time, there must be a way to interact with them to carry out meaningful computations.

This is why there are so many different types of hardware still in the race to be the first operating quantum computer.

Some types are very good for performing fast operations, but suffer from noise. Others are well shielded from noise, but difficult to operate and scale up.

Getting atomic nuclei to talk to each other

My team has been working on a platform that – until today – could be placed in the second camp. We have implanted phosphorus atoms in silicon chips, and used the spin of the atoms’ cores to encode quantum information.

To build a useful quantum computer, we will need to work with lots of atomic nuclei at the same time. But until now, the only way to work with multiple atomic nuclei was to place them very close together inside a solid, where they could be surrounded by a single electron.

We usually think of an electron being far smaller than the nucleus of an atom. However, quantum physics tells us it can “spread out” in space, so it can interact with multiple atomic nuclei at the same time.

Even so, the range over which a single electron can spread is quite limited. Moreover, adding more nuclei to the same electron makes it very challenging to control each nucleus individually.

Electronic ‘telephones’ to entangle remote nuclei

We could say that, until now, nuclei were like people placed in soundproof rooms. They can talk to each other as long as they are all in the same room, and the conversations are really clear.

But they can’t hear anything from the outside, and there’s only so many people who can fit inside the room. Therefore, this mode of conversation can’t be scaled up.

In our new work, it’s as if we gave people telephones to communicate to other rooms. Each room is still nice and quiet on the inside, but now we can have conversations between many more people, even if they are far away.

The “telephones” are electrons. By their ability to spread out in space, two electrons can “touch” each other at quite some distance.

And if each electron is directly coupled to an atomic nucleus, the nuclei can communicate via the interaction between the electrons.

We used the electron channel to create quantum entanglement between the nuclei by means of a method called the “geometric gate”, which we used a few years ago to carry out high-precision quantum operations with atoms in silicon.

Now – for the first time in silicon – we showed this method can scale up beyond pairs of nuclei that are attached to the same electron.

Fitting in with integrated circuits

In our experiment, the phosphorus nuclei were separated by 20 nanometres. If this seems like still a small distance, it is: there are fewer than 40 silicon atoms between the two phosphorus ones.

But this is also the scale at which everyday silicon transistors are fabricated. Creating quantum entanglement on the 20-nanometre scale means we can integrate our long-lived, well-shielded nuclear spin qubits into the existing architecture of standard silicon chips like the ones in our phones and computers.

In the future, we envisage pushing the entanglement distance even further, because the electrons can be physically moved, or squeezed into more elongated shapes.

Our latest breakthrough means that the progress in electron-based quantum devices can be applied to the construction of quantum computers that use long-lived nuclear spins to perform reliable computations.

Andrea Morello, Professor, Quantum Nanosystems, UNSW Sydney

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Food prices remain high even as inflation eases, and instant noodles are at the top of the list of cheap options.

More than 100 billion servings of instant ramen are consumed each year, making it one of the world’s most popular convenience foods.

Instant noodles are a global commodity. But when were they invented, and has ramen always been a “struggle meal”?

Early origins

Most people attribute ramen’s global popularity to its low price and easy preparation, but a look at the origin story behind the noodles reveals working-class roots and innovative cooking techniques.

In 1910, Ozaki Kan'ichi, a former Japanese customs official, abandoned his career to open a Chinese restaurant in Asakusa, a working-class district in Tokyo. Rai-Rai Ken was the first Chinese restaurant owned by a Japanese national.

Before it was called ramen, thin Chinese wheat noodles in soup were called chūka soba (literally, Chinese noodles). Kan'ichi’s menu featured a soy-flavoured soup with noodles, roast pork, dried seaweed and fish cake. The broth and toppings were new additions to previous versions of Chinese noodle soups served in Japan, making a more substantial meal.

An ancient Chinese technique using alkaline water, kansui, made the noodles curly, chewy and a light yellow colour.

Timing for the new food was perfect, as workers moved away from agriculture in rural areas to urban centres for work, education and training.

Chūka soba became a popular and affordable choice, served from cafes, pushcarts and informal Chinese and Western-style restaurants catering to students and industrial workers at all hours.

Postwar Japan

During World War II, restaurants and food carts (yatai) were prohibited in Japan, in an effort to preserve scarce food resources.

After the war, US forces in Japan enforced rationing and continued the wartime ban on restaurants. To make up for rice shortages, large quantities of US wheat were imported to prevent famine. The food-distribution system, however, was inefficient, insecure and prone to corruption.

Wheat made its way onto the black market, where it was turned into noodles and sold from illegal carts in bombed-out cities.

A Taiwanese immigrant, Momofuku Ando, saw the long lines of hungry people patiently waiting for noodles and was inspired to find a way to invent noodles that would be quick and easy to make at home.

In his autobiography, Ando shared his vision for the future after witnessing postwar hunger:

Peace will come to the world when all its people have enough to eat.

By the 1950s, restrictions on wheat rationing eased and led to a boom in noodles sold from yatai. In the home, rice shortages continued and bread consumption increased out of necessity, although many hoped this was a short-term trend.

There was a gap in the market for a more familiar product that was made from wheat but was as convenient as bread.

Invented in the garden shed

Ando worked in a shed in his back yard, experimenting with an old noodle machine and a wok. After watching his wife make tempura, he saw that deep frying not only cooked the food, it also made water vaporise. He realised this was the key to creating noodles that could cook in only two minutes, but would not get soggy or stale on the shelf.

On August 25 1958, Momofoku Ando launched “Instant Cook Chikin Ramen” – referred to as magic ramen in Japan. The noodles were already seasoned and cooked, cutting down on time and labour, but delivering the protein content of bread flour. Ando chose “chikin” as the flagship flavour, as it didn’t raise dietary issues for any religion.

Ando popularised the term “ramen”, another name used in Japan for chuku soba, borrowed from the Chinese word lāmiàn for a type of hand-pulled noodles from the north. Japanese ramen are actually rolled and cut, not pulled, and are modelled after noodles from Guangdong in the south – but the name stuck.

The first instant noodles cost six times more than regular ramen, which took ten minutes to cook and were not flavoured. Prices fell quickly as the instant noodles became popular, and Ando’s Nissin corporation went into large-scale production.

In 1971, instant ramen was packaged in polystyrene cups, making it even more convenient – just add hot water.

Noodles, noodles, everywhere

The cultural importance of instant ramen in Japan cannot be overstated. It was named the most important invention of the 20th century in a poll at the end of 1999.

While there are two museums in Japan dedicated to instant ramen, the appeal is also global. Vietnam has the highest per capita consumption, followed by Korea and Thailand.

Instant noodles are ubiquitous, even behind bars. Ramen packets became a de facto currency in US prisons, replacing cigarettes after smoking bans were introduced in 2004. Budgets cuts at correctional facilities reduced spending on food, making ramen an essential supplement for inmates and a frequent purchase at the prison commissary.

Instant ramen really is available everywhere, even in outer space. “Space Ram” accompanied Japanese astronaut Soichi Noguchi on his 2005 expedition. Naturally, these were a special edition, designed for eating in a zero-gravity environment.

In Thailand, Mama Noodles launched a noodle index in 2005 as an economic barometer, showing how sales increased during tough economic times.

Food prices are still high and the global economy remains uncertain, but at least we can rely on instant ramen remaining an affordable option around the world.

Garritt C. Van Dyk, Senior Lecturer in History, University of Waikato

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Hollywood is the place where having a great face will get you far. Think Errol Flynn, James Dean, George Clooney, Brad Pitt – a handsome appearance opens acting doors.

Those good looks, the magical smile, the natural charm all became synonymous with Robert Redford, who has died aged 89.

But good looks can only get you so far. You still need the acting chops as well as the strength of character to make a real impression in the world of cinema, and in the world itself.

Redford had this all in spades.

The young actor

After a rough start in life, including the death of his mother and dropping out of college, Redford began acting at 23 on Broadway and in small roles in quality television productions such as The Untouchables (1963), Maverick (1960), Dr Kildare (1962) and The Twilight Zone (1962), to name a few, which all honed his screen presence.

He made his feature film debut with a minor role in Tall Story (1960), alongside Jane Fonda (also her debut). This started a lifelong friendship between the two. They would act on several productions together, and Fonda admitted she was in love with Redford her whole life.

His talent was soon recognised. He was nominated for his first Emmy in 1962 for his supporting role in the TV movie The Voice of Charlie Pont.

After this, Redford soon became an in-demand actor. Larger roles in film and TV soon came his way, many as a romantic character.

Films such as Inside Daisy Clover (1965), This Property is Condemned (1966) and Barefoot in the Park (1967) portrayed Redford as the lover/husband to strong female characters, the first two with Natalie Wood, the third, again, with Fonda.

The birth of an icon

His good looks sometimes grated on Redford, which led him to refuse a role in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf (1966) and being turned down for the lead in The Graduate (1967). He went in search of more diverse roles.

This led to a film that didn’t just make Redford a star, but a Hollywood icon.

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) was one of the greatest actor partnerships in Hollywood history. Paul Newman was a much bigger star than Redford at the time of the movie’s release, but arguably it propelled Redford’s star beyond anyone else at that time.

Redford portrayed Sundance with sly wit, simmering masculinity, sardonic smartness and, well, just outright sexiness. Suddenly both teenage boys and girls had his poster on their bedroom wall. The world fell in love with him.

Redford was on a roll. Over the next half-decade came hit after hit, including The Candidate (1972), The Way We Were (1973) with Barbara Streisand, The Sting (1972) again with Newman, and The Great Gatsby (1974), to name but a few. Redford was cemented as the lead man du jour.

The saying “lightning never strikes twice” never reckoned on Redford. In 1976 he took on his next highly iconic role alongside Dustin Hoffman in All the President’s Men.

It could be said that Hoffman, well regarded as the actor’s actor, was eclipsed by Redford in his role as Watergate journalist Bob Woodward. To me it was a travesty that Redford (or Hoffman, for that matter) was not nominated for Oscars in these roles.

By now Redford wasn’t just seen as the “pretty boy” but as a serious actor who took on more and more dramatic roles in The Electric Horseman (1979), Brubaker (1980), Out of Africa (1985) and Indecent Proposal (1998).

Being on screen for over five decades, younger audiences possibly wondered who the grizzled old man playing agent Alexander Pierce in two Marvel movies in 2014 and 2019 was.

A lasting legacy

Beginning in the 70s, Redford increasingly yearned to also be behind the camera.

As early as 1969 he took on the executive producer role in Downhill Racer.

Into the 80s he began directing. His feature directorial debut, Ordinary People (1980), won him his one and only Oscar (although he was given an honorary one in 2002).

He would go on to direct and produce notable films such as The Horse Whisperer (1998), A River Runs Through It (1992) and Quiz Show (1994), among others.

He was still working as an executive producer up until recently on the TV series Dark Wind (2022–25).

Away from the cameras, Redford was widely known as a philanthropist, environmentalist and a strong supporter of American First Nations and LGBTQI+ rights.

Publicly, though, Redford will probably be most remembered for the Sundance Institute and the film festival that sprang from it.

The largest independent festival in the United States, it gave a leg up to hundreds of up-and-coming independent filmmakers over the years including Quentin Tarantino, Robert Rodriguez, Jane Schoenbrun, Kevin Smith and Paul Thomas Anderson.

When we look back on his body of work, though, one thing becomes plainly obvious.

While Redford may have used his looks to initially open the Hollywood doors to success and fame, it was his talent and dedication to his craft that kept those doors open.

A versatile actor, director and producer who gave back to the industry just as much, if not more, than he took. For this, Redford was much, much more than a pretty face.

Daryl Sparkes, Senior Lecturer, Media Studies and Production, University of Southern Queensland

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

When Robert Redford launched the Utah-based Sundance Institute in 1981, providing an independent support system for filmmakers named after his role in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969), it would transform Hollywood and become his biggest legacy.

Redford, who has passed away age 89, was already a huge movie icon when he bought land and created a non-profit space with a mission statement “to foster independent voices, champion risky, original stories, and cultivate a community for artists to create and thrive globally”.

Starting with labs, fellowships, grants and mentoring programs for independent filmmakers, he finally decided to launch his own film festival in nearby Park City, Utah in 1985.

“The labs were absolutely the most important part of Sundance and that is still the core of what we are and what we do today,” Redford reflected during my last sit-down with him in 2013 at the Toronto International Film Festival, while promoting his own indie, All is Lost.

After the program had been running for five years, he told me

I realised we had succeeded in doing that much, but now there was nowhere for them to go. So, I thought, ‘well, what if we created a festival, where at least we can bring the filmmakers together to look at each other’s work and then we could create a community for them?’ And then, to my happy surprise, it grew beyond my imagination.

That’s putting it mildly. An astonishing list of filmmakers can all thank Redford for their career breakthroughs. Alumni of the Sundance Institute include Bong Joon-ho (who workshopped early scripts at Sundance labs before Parasite), Chloé Zhao and Taika Waititi, who often returns as a mentor.

First films that debuted at the festival include Quentin Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs (1992), Steve Soderbergh’s Sex, Lies, and Videotape (1989), Richard Linklater’s Slackers (2002), Paul Thomas Anderson’s Cigarettes and Coffee (1993), Nicole Holofcener’s short film Angry (1991), Darren Aronofsky’s Pi (1998) and Damian Chazelle’s Whiplash (2014).

Australian films which recently made their Sundance debut include Noora Niasari’s Shayda (2023), Daina Reid’s Run, Rabbit, Run (2023) and Sophie Hyde’s Jimpa (2025).

Creating a haven

For anyone lucky enough to have attended Sundance in the early days, it was a haven for indie filmmakers. It was not uncommon to see “Bob”, as he was always known in person, walking down the main street on his way to a movie premiere or a dinner with young filmmakers eager for his advice.

Watching Redford portray Bob Woodward in the Watergate thriller All the President’s Men (1976) was one of my earliest inspirations for pursuing a career in journalism. Also, nurturing a crush since The Sting (1973) and The Way We Were (1973) made it hard not to be intimidated crossing paths with him in Park City.

Bob, however, quickly made you forget the icon status. Soon, you’d just be chatting about a new filmmaker he was excited to support, or his environmental work (he served as a trustee for five decades on the non-profit organisation, Natural Resources Defense Council).

Everyone felt equal in that indie film world, and Redford was responsible for that atmosphere.

In 1994, I waited in a Main Street coffee shop for Elle MacPherson to ski off a mountain and do an interview promoting her acting role in the Australian film Sirens. Later that day, I commiserated over a hot chocolate with Hugh Grant as he complained about frostbitten toes from wearing the wrong shoes and finding himself trekking through a snowstorm to the first screening of Four Weddings and a Funeral.

In the early days, Sundance was a destination for film lovers, not hair and makeup people, inappropriately glamorous designer gowns or swag lounges.

The arrival of Hollywood

But eventually, there was no denying the clout of any film making it to Sundance, and Hollywood came knocking.

“In 1985, we only had one theatre and maybe there were four or five restaurants in town, so it was a much quieter, smaller place and over time it grew so incredibly the atmosphere changed,” Redford reflected during our interview.

Suddenly all these people came in to leverage off our festival and because we are a non-profit, we couldn’t do anything about it. We had what we called ‘ambush mongers’ coming in to sell their wares and give out swag and I’m sure there will always be those people, but we are strong enough to resist being overtaken by it.

The festival resisted but the infrastructure gave in. In 2027, the Sundance Film Festival will finally relocate to Boulder, Colorado after a careful selection process aimed at ensuring the spirit of Sundance remains.

Redford stepped back from being the public face of the festival in 2019, dedicating himself instead to spend more time with filmmakers and their projects. But he supported the move to Colorado, and said in his statement of the announcement

Words cannot express the sincere gratitude I have for Park City, the state of Utah, and all those in the Utah community that have helped to build the organization.

The spirit of Sundance lives on, but it just won’t be the same without Bob on the streets or in the movie theatres.

Jenny Cooney, Lecturer in Lifestyle Journalism, Monash University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

When most of us think about what shaped our planet, we probably picture volcanoes, earthquakes, and huge continents slowly drifting apart (or back together again) over millions or billions of years. We also know meteorite impacts were important; our crater-packed Moon is clear evidence of that.

But what if Earth’s geological story was also written further afield in the stars – specifically, in the spiral arms of our home galaxy, the Milky Way?

That’s the bold idea that has been resonating behind some recent research that links astrophysics with geology. So far, these controversial ideas have been based on models, limited by gaps in Earth’s geological record and the uncertainties in our Solar System’s galactic path.

But our new study, published this week in Physical Review Research, takes a different approach by comparing maps of hydrogen gas in the Milky Way with chemical fingerprints in ancient crystals on Earth. The findings support the view that Earth’s crust may have been influenced by the Solar System’s journey around the galaxy.

Reading the galaxy through hydrogen

Astronomers often use neutral hydrogen, the simplest atom of one proton and one electron, as a cosmic marker.

This atomic hydrogen emits radio waves at a wavelength of 21 centimetres, which cut through the dust and gas that obscure much of the Milky Way from our view. These emissions, from higher density regions of hydrogen, reveal the sweeping spiral arms of the galaxy, even when visible-light telescopes cannot.

The spiral arms aren’t solid structures. Instead, they’re density waves – like traffic jams of stars, gas and dust that move around the galactic disc more slowly than individual stars themselves.

As the Solar System orbits the galactic centre faster than the arms, it periodically overtakes them, roughly every 180–200 million years. Passing through a spiral arm could increase the number of comets and asteroids striking Earth.

Zircon crystals: tiny time capsules

How can we know if Earth really felt the consequences of these galactic encounters? The answer may lie in zircon, a hardy mineral commonly found in Earth’s crust, that can survive for billions of years.

Zircon crystals form in magmas and are like tiny time capsules. Not only can they be dated, but they also carry chemical clues about what Earth was like at the moment they grew.

Inside these crystals, the oxygen atoms occur in slightly different forms, called isotopes, that have the same chemistry but different masses. These isotopes act as tracers, showing whether the magma came from deep inside Earth or had contact with surface water.

As the Solar System travels around the galaxy, it passes through spiral arms where hydrogen gas is more concentrated. If there is unusual variability in zircon oxygen isotopes at the times of high atomic hydrogen density, then this suggests something disrupted the normal balance of crust formation on Earth.

Matching Earth’s rocks with galactic maps

The new study directly compared this zircon isotope record with radio frequency-measured hydrogen density along the Solar System’s galactic orbit. The result? Striking correlations.

Periods when the Solar System passed through spiral arms – regions with denser hydrogen – line up with spikes in zircon oxygen variability.

In other words, Earth’s crust seemed more “chaotic” at the same times the Solar System was embedded in star-forming arms of the Milky Way.

A galactic fingerprint on Earth’s crust

What could explain this connection?

One idea is that when the Solar System moves through a spiral arm, it can shake up the distant icy region of space known as the Oort Cloud, a giant reservoir of comets far beyond Pluto.

Some of these comets may then hurtle toward Earth.

Each impact delivers enormous energy – enough to melt rock, trigger geological upheaval and leave lasting marks in the planet’s crust.

Crucially, this record is preserved over billions of years, much longer than the impact craters we can still see on Earth, which are often erased by erosion or plate tectonics.

Zircons may therefore offer a deep-time archive of galactic influences that we can’t observe directly through astronomy.

A cosmic connection

If Earth’s geology really responds to the rhythms of the galaxy, it expands our view of what drives planetary evolution. It suggests that to fully understand Earth, we must look beyond it, to the vast structures of the Milky Way that periodically reshaped our Solar System’s environment.

Recognising astrophysical fingerprints in planetary geology could provide new clues about crustal growth, habitability, and even the emergence of life.

Of course, caution is warranted. Correlation doesn’t always mean causation, and disentangling the effects of galactic arm crossings from Earth’s internal processes is tricky. But the emerging evidence is compelling enough to take seriously.

For now, zircon crystals, tiny grains often smaller than a sand particle, are helping us glimpse a connection between Earth and the cosmos.

Chris Kirkland, Professor of Geochronology, Curtin University and Phil Sutton, Senior Lecturer in Astrophysics, University of Lincoln

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The new Australian family film, Kangaroo, is a rare beast. It’s not just a movie for kids that adults can tolerate. It’s funny, heartfelt, emotionally authentic and ultimately uplifting.

It’s been 25 years since director Kate Woods released the much-loved coming-of-age classic Looking For Alibrandi. That might seem like a long time between big screen gigs, but a quick look at Woods’ IMDb page brings up dozens of small screen credits both here and in the United States. She’s hardly been twiddling her thumbs.

You might know the story that inspired Kangaroo. Around 2005, outback tour guide Chris “Brolga” Barns set up Kangaroo Sanctuary in Alice Springs, after too many experiences rescuing orphaned joeys from the pouches of road-killed mothers. His most famous rescue, Roger the “sparring” kangaroo, became an internet sensation.

Studio Canal (the creators of the Paddington films) bought the rights to Brolga’s book, Kangaroo Dundee. But as Woods told me, they “didn’t actually want his story, so we made one up”.

In this case, “we” is Brolga Films and screenwriter Harry Cripps, with a little help from Looking for Alibrandi author and screenwriter, Melina Marchetta. Kangaroo’s screenplay has a light touch, and a fine balance between humour and serious themes – just one of the many factors that come together to make the film work.

Pit stop at Silver Gum

The story follows Charlie (Lily Whiteley), a young girl grieving the death of her father. Charlie and her mother Rosie (Deborah Mailman) move to the small fictional outback town of Silver Gum where her grandparents Gwennie (Trisha Morton-Thomas) and Ralph (Wayne Blair) live.

Charlie and her father shared a deep connection with kangaroos, and she honours that by caring for orphaned joeys in her bedroom – much to her mother’s frustration.

Meanwhile, in Sydney, ambitious TV weather man Chris Masterman (Ryan Corr) takes the advice of his producer (Brooke Satchwell) to be more action-oriented if he wants a big promotion. But his efforts with a dolphin go horribly, virally, wrong.

Chris is fired, and cancelled, so he heads to Broome in his Corvette to take the only job that will have him. But on the way he collides with a kangaroo and finds himself stranded in Silver Gum with a rescued joey.

He waits for his car to be fixed by Dave the mechanic (Ernie Dingo), who is in cahoots with Charlie to keep him there long enough to trick him into caring for his (and other) orphaned joeys. The longer Chris stays, the more joeys he ends up looking after.

The film’s excellent supporting cast includes Rachel House, Genevieve Lemon, Emily Taheny, Salvatore Coco, Rob Carlton, Roy Billing and Rarriwuy Hick. Together, they bring the town and its story to life.

A breakthrough role for Whiteley

Much of this story’s success rides on the performance of the actor playing Charlie.

It’s not the first time Woods has needed an exceptional performance by a newcomer to carry a film. In Looking For Alibrandi, it was Pia Miranda. Here it’s the remarkable and very watchable Lily Whiteley.

Woods told me:

[Whiteley] had never stood in front of a camera before […] [she] was a gymnast and a dancer and so very disciplined, and took on the task of becoming an actor very seriously and very beautifully […] the minute we all saw Lily […] I just knew she was Charlie.

Whiteley is magic onscreen, and holds her own in the company of experienced talent.

However, as good as the human cast is, they’re arguably upstaged by the marsupial cast. While many of the scenes with adult kangaroos are achieved using CGI (computer-generated imagery), the cast of joeys are the real thing.

As Woods explained:

they all had their own trailer and Chris Barns […] taught us how to look after them.

Then there are the visuals

Sam Hobbs’ production design and Kieran Fowler’s cinematography authentically bring the small community of Silver Gum to life.

The film’s stunning outback backdrop feels like much more than just product placement for potential tourists – which is unsurprising as the second unit work is done by renowned director and cinematographer Warwick Thornton.

Kangaroo succeeds on many levels. Woods notes that many outback films are about isolation and darker themes. Not this one. In her own words, this is a joyous film about “a thriving community and the healing power of nature and animals”.

It’s also about redemption, and the power of believing in yourself and others. “I want to create films that are an emotional experience, not just a laugh,” Woods said.

I’d say she has certainly achieved that.

Kangaroo is in cinemas from today.

Chris Thompson, Lecturer in Theatre, Australian Catholic University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Jakob von Uexküll was a Baltic German biologist ahead of his time, intrigued by the idea that animals inhabit unique perceptual worlds quite unlike our own. In 1934, he described angling for flies by swinging an adhesive-covered pea on a thread, finding that male flies would dive on the pea and be caught. Within the perceptual world of a fly, the swinging pea was a potential mate.

We can’t be exactly sure what a fly’s perceptual world looks like, but we know it must be very different to our own. And learning about it can do much more than satisfy our curiosity. It could help keep people safe from disease.

While a human eye has only one lens, the main eyes of flies are compound eyes that each consist of hundreds or thousands of individual lenses. A fruit fly eye has about 700, and a blowfly eye 5,000. Each of these lenses is part of a sampling unit called an ommatidium, which also contains eight light-sensitive photoreceptor cells.

The structure of the compound eye affects a fly’s ability to make out shapes and patterns. In houseflies, light from a given point in its field of view activates seven photoreceptors in seven separate ommatidia through their respective lenses. Combined, that information is a bit like an image pixel.

Information about shape and pattern is generated when the visual system compares neighbouring “pixels”. The arrangement of lenses in the compound eye limits the minimum size of a “pixel” and thus a fly’s ability to make out spatial details.

As a result, a fly can only resolve relatively coarse spatial detail. If a housefly and a human with 20/20 vision were taking an eyesight test, the fly would need to be about 6cm from the chart to make out the detail that the human could at six metres. For the fly to achieve human-like spatial resolution, it would need larger lenses and a flatter eye, resulting in a compound eye about one metre in diameter.

This lack of spatial acuity is compensated for with speed. Some fly species’ photoreceptors respond much faster than human photoreceptors. This is true of day-active flies which have faster-responding photoreceptors than their more ponderous, nocturnal kin. For us, a flashing light blurs into a constant one at 50-90 flashes per second, but a blowfly’s photoreceptors can distinguish more than 200 separate flashes per second. Thus, we perceive motion in the fast sequence of static images comprising a cartoon, but a fly might not be fooled.

Given this, it’s no wonder that swatting an irritating fly can be a challenge. When a scientist from Florida tried to photograph resting long-legged flies, he found that the flies were generally in flight, potentially startled by the flash, before the image was even captured.

Saying this, some fly eyes are specially adapted for both spatial and temporal detail. Male flies of many species have eyes that meet at the top and front of the head, whilst those of females have an obvious gap. The extra region of the male eye is the “love spot”, with larger lenses and faster-responding photoreceptors that give improved sensitivity to small and fast-moving objects needed for tracking females during high-speed airborne courtship chases.

Killer fly relatives of the humble housefly are also adapted for great visual prowess, here needed to catch small insect prey like fruit flies mid-flight.

Most people don’t consider perception as they try to shoo an annoying fly out of an open window, or whack it with a newspaper. However, understanding insect perception can inspire new ways of controlling pests, as von Uexküll’s fly “fishing rod” demonstrated. This is important because lots of flies transmit disease, so we need to control flies to prevent sickness in humans and animals.

Perception of colour is important in this context. The human retina has three kinds of cone photoreceptors sensitive to blue, green and red light, and our brains compare those three signals to create colour perceptions. By contrast, a typical housefly ommatidium has five types of photoreceptors including a couple sensitive to UV, but none that are particularly sensitive to red light.

As a result, colour perceptions must be quite different for flies and humans, and experiments with blowflies suggest they perceive just four distinct colours, some with no human equivalent. Whether this is true of other flies remains to be seen.

In Africa, tsetse flies spread sleeping sickness, which has profound effects on the central nervous system that upset the sleep/wake cycle, cause confusion and sensory disturbances, and ultimately lead to death without treatment.

Coloured fabric targets doused with insecticide are often used to control tsetse flies and protect humans and animals, and normally these targets are blue. However, we modelled fly colour perception to develop a better colour for luring flies, which turned out to be purple to a human eye. We recently found that this colour attracts stable flies and houseflies as well, which are also vectors of human and animal disease.

In urban settings, we are combining colour and spatial vision models to understand how to better manage flies in these environments. A particular challenge is that artificial lighting is designed for human vision, and lacks UV wavelengths that flies are sensitive to. This gives the light an entirely different colour from their point of view, and potentially prevents flies from differentiating between colours that they otherwise would under natural lighting.

By delving into the fly’s perceptual world, we hope we can better understand their behaviour, and devise new methods to control them.

Roger Santer, Lecturer in Zoology, Aberystwyth University and Matthew Sparks, PhD Candidate in Entomology, Swansea University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

In our age of digital influencers, it could be easy to believe that building a professional network is a modern phenomenon.

However, long before the dawn of social media, women artists in late Victorian and Edwardian London mastered this art.

Although they weren’t the first in history to do so, they crafted a revolutionary style of social networking — not for the sake of fame, but as a means to break down systemic barriers and challenge the gender norms that dominated the English art world.

A historical framework for success

Historians David Doughan and Peter Gordon have documented the rise of women’s clubs in Britain, and feminist art historians Maria Quirk and Zoë Thomas have emphasized how these networks enabled women artists to professionalize and promote their work.

This article explores how the frameworks of authenticity, trust and mutual support established by these women laid a strong foundation for their professional success — a strategy that remains strikingly relevant today.

Exclusion and the art world

During the Victorian era, the art world operated like an exclusive “old boys’ club” that kept female talent at bay. Prestigious institutions like the Royal Academy largely excluded women, denying them entry for many years.

It wasn’t until 1860 that the first female member, Laura Herford, gained acceptance by submitting her application under the ambiguous name “L. Herford.” Once her true identity was revealed, the embarrassed academicians had no choice but to reconsider their policies.

Despite this landmark achievement, crucial training opportunities, such as life drawing, remained inaccessible to female students. Women were sidelined from major exhibitions organized by their male counterparts and excluded from influential social clubs where valuable connections and potential patronage were often made.

The few artworks they managed to sell were generally limited to themes like flowers or still lifes, which fetched much lower prices compared to the grand historical paintings that propelled their male colleagues to stardom.

Members of the press and art critics, predominantly male, dismissed their efforts as mere “amateur” pursuits — a label that served to undermine their professional credibility. In this stifling environment, the system was designed to ensure women artists were never given a fair chance.

The rise of women’s art clubs

Confronted with a system that marginalized them, determined women artists formed their own women’s clubs aimed at overcoming institutional barriers.

In late 19th and early 20th-century London, several prominent women’s art organizations emerged, including the Society of Women Artists, the Women’s Guild of Arts, the Women’s International Art Club, the Pioneer Club and the Lyceum Club.

Each of these groups was founded on a commitment to professional development, mutual support and the essential need for a united voice.

My emerging research explores the dynamics of women’s networks by closely analyzing letters, documents, exhibition catalogues and contemporary newspapers related to these organizations, and so far has identified three vital functions:

1. Fostering artistic development

At a time when formal networking opportunities were scarce for women, organizations like the Pioneer Club (1892) and the Lyceum Club (1903) emerged as crucial, supportive environments. These clubs began with the ambitious vision of creating a space for personal and artistic growth and also provided venues for connection and collaboration.

They also offered the rare chance for members to stay overnight, giving women the freedom to travel for their work without a chaperone.

Founded in 1907, the Women’s Guild of Arts became a dynamic hub where members could learn, showcase their art, receive constructive criticism and hone their skills. These networks fostered mentorship and empowered women artists to refine their craft within a supportive community.

2. Creating independent exhibition opportunities

In the face of exclusion from male-only exhibitions, women artists established their own platforms. They launched their own venues to bypass the gatekeepers of the art world and connect directly with their audiences.

A striking example is the Society of Women Artists, founded in 1855, which has hosted annual “women-only” exhibitions that not only sparked public conversation but also created a lasting space for visibility.

The Women’s International Art Club, established in 1898, broadened this mission, forming a transnational network that enabled its members to exhibit and sell their works across Europe, America and Australia.

3. Building community and professional identity

Women’s clubs emerged as the original networking hubs, similar to modern meetups. For those often labelled “amateurs,” joining organizations like the Society of Women Artists, Women’s International Art Club or Women’s Guild of Art offered a pathway to professional development and recognition.

These social networks fostered a supportive environment where members could share advice and provide emotional backing as they navigated careers filled with systemic challenges. This ecosystem highlighted how working together was crucial in driving individual successes.

Their enduring legacy

The story of early women’s art clubs highlights a crucial chapter in the history of creative entrepreneurship. These women both created their own professional opportunities and worked to change societal perceptions of women in the arts.

The strategies they used to navigate a restrictive environment still resonate today.

In a digital landscape filled with fleeting followers and superficial likes, their legacy prompts us to reflect on the fundamental need for human connection, and the extent to which true success still hinges on building a community rather than simply amassing a following.

Triveni Srikaran, PhD Candidate, Department of History, McMaster University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Every year, one of Australia’s biggest longitudinal surveys provides a range of insights on how the nation is changing.

The Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) Survey, released today, reveals trends on a wide range of aspects of life in Australia, including household relationships, income, health and wellbeing.

HILDA has been following the same people every year since 2001, with about 16,000 respondents in the latest survey. This makes it possible to examine how the lives of Australians have changed across several aspects. Funded by the Australian government and managed by the Melbourne Institute, the survey is one of Australia’s most valuable social research tools.

So, what are the highlights from the 2025 report?

Friendships are declining

Friendships are clearly important, providing both emotional and practical support to people. However, agreement with the statement “I seem to have a lot of friends” has fallen noticeably from 2010 to 2023. This long-term decline accelerated during the COVID-19 period, when social distancing measures often prevented face-to-face interactions with friends.

The decline in friendships has repercussions for people’s wellbeing. The report shows a low perceived number of friends is associated fewer social activities, greater feelings of loneliness and poorer mental health. This is all the more concerning because it often gets harder to make friends as life goes on.

Time stress is rising again

Time stress – feeling rushed often or almost always – is common for many Australians, especially women. In 2023, 38% of women reported frequent time stress, while only 29% of men did. This gap has persisted over the past two decades. Rates fell sharply in 2020 during the pandemic’s first year but have since returned to pre-pandemic levels for both groups.

Retirement age has seen a big shift

Australia has seen a dramatic transformation of retirement over the past 20 years, retiring later than they used to. In 2003, nearly 70% of women and almost half of men aged 60–64 were fully retired. By 2023, this dropped to 41% for women and 27% for men.

Retirement rates have also declined among those aged 65-69. Over the same period, the Age Pension eligibility age was equalised for men and women at 65 by 2013, then gradually increased to 67 between 2017 and 2023.

The decision to retire is no longer driven purely by personal preference or age alone. It’s increasingly shaped by policy, housing wealth, super balances and whether someone can afford to stop working.

We’re paying more in income tax

Australians are now paying the highest average rate of income tax since the turn of the millennium. But the trend over this period hasn’t always been upwards. Between 2006 and 2011, the average tax rate for full-time workers actually fell, from 19.4% to 15.7%. Since 2011, however, the trend has overwhelmingly been upwards.

Across the population as a whole aged 15 and over, the average share of income paid as income tax rose to 11.7% in the 2022-23 financial year. For full-time workers, the average rate was higher, at 20.3%.

Bodily pain

Pain can severely affect people’s ability to take part in day-to-day activities, work, and lead happy and satisfying lives.

The new data shows the extent of bodily pain Australians report has risen over the last two decades – and it’s not just due to an ageing population. We asked respondents about whether they experienced pain and how much it affected their day-to-day life, then calculated a score from 0 (no bodily pain) to 100 (severe pain).

The average levels of pain that women reported increased by 5.6% between 2001 and 2003 (from 27 points to 28.5 points). For men, pain increased by 4.8% (27 points to 28.3 points).

Pain scores were slightly higher for women than for men across all years.

We adjusted these scores for age, suggesting the reported rise is not due to ageing but instead other factors, such as an increase in chronic conditions, obesity, and people being more likely to report their pain.

Inga Lass, Senior research fellow, The University of Melbourne; Ferdi Botha, Senior Research Fellow, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, The University of Melbourne; Kyle Peyton, Senior research fellow, The University of Melbourne, and Roger Wilkins, Professorial Fellow and Co-Director, HILDA Survey, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, The University of Melbourne

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Hollywood is the place where having a great face will get you far. Think Errol Flynn, James Dean, George Clooney, Brad Pitt – a handsome appearance opens acting doors.

Those good looks, the magical smile, the natural charm all became synonymous with Robert Redford, who has died aged 89.

But good looks can only get you so far. You still need the acting chops as well as the strength of character to make a real impression in the world of cinema, and in the world itself.

Redford had this all in spades.

The young actor

After a rough start in life, including the death of his mother and dropping out of college, Redford began acting at 23 on Broadway and in small roles in quality television productions such as The Untouchables (1963), Maverick (1960), Dr Kildare (1962) and The Twilight Zone (1962), to name a few, which all honed his screen presence.

He made his feature film debut with a minor role in Tall Story (1960), alongside Jane Fonda (also her debut). This started a lifelong friendship between the two. They would act on several productions together, and Fonda admitted she was in love with Redford her whole life.

His talent was soon recognised. He was nominated for his first Emmy in 1962 for his supporting role in the TV movie The Voice of Charlie Pont.

After this, Redford soon became an in-demand actor. Larger roles in film and TV soon came his way, many as a romantic character.

Films such as Inside Daisy Clover (1965), This Property is Condemned (1966) and Barefoot in the Park (1967) portrayed Redford as the lover/husband to strong female characters, the first two with Natalie Wood, the third, again, with Fonda.

The birth of an icon

His good looks sometimes grated on Redford, which led him to refuse a role in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf (1966) and being turned down for the lead in The Graduate (1967). He went in search of more diverse roles.

This led to a film that didn’t just make Redford a star, but a Hollywood icon.

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) was one of the greatest actor partnerships in Hollywood history. Paul Newman was a much bigger star than Redford at the time of the movie’s release, but arguably it propelled Redford’s star beyond anyone else at that time.

Redford portrayed Sundance with sly wit, simmering masculinity, sardonic smartness and, well, just outright sexiness. Suddenly both teenage boys and girls had his poster on their bedroom wall. The world fell in love with him.

Redford was on a roll. Over the next half-decade came hit after hit, including The Candidate (1972), The Way We Were (1973) with Barbara Streisand, The Sting (1972) again with Newman, and The Great Gatsby (1974), to name but a few. Redford was cemented as the lead man du jour.

The saying “lightning never strikes twice” never reckoned on Redford. In 1976 he took on his next highly iconic role alongside Dustin Hoffman in All the President’s Men.

It could be said that Hoffman, well regarded as the actor’s actor, was eclipsed by Redford in his role as Watergate journalist Bob Woodward. To me it was a travesty that Redford (or Hoffman, for that matter) was not nominated for Oscars in these roles.

By now Redford wasn’t just seen as the “pretty boy” but as a serious actor who took on more and more dramatic roles in The Electric Horseman (1979), Brubaker (1980), Out of Africa (1985) and Indecent Proposal (1998).

Being on screen for over five decades, younger audiences possibly wondered who the grizzled old man playing agent Alexander Pierce in two Marvel movies in 2014 and 2019 was.

A lasting legacy

Beginning in the 70s, Redford increasingly yearned to also be behind the camera.

As early as 1969 he took on the executive producer role in Downhill Racer.

Into the 80s he began directing. His feature directorial debut, Ordinary People (1980), won him his one and only Oscar (although he was given an honorary one in 2002).

He would go on to direct and produce notable films such as The Horse Whisperer (1998), A River Runs Through It (1992) and Quiz Show (1994), among others.

He was still working as an executive producer up until recently on the TV series Dark Wind (2022–25).

Away from the cameras, Redford was widely known as a philanthropist, environmentalist and a strong supporter of American First Nations and LGBTQI+ rights.

Publicly, though, Redford will probably be most remembered for the Sundance Institute and the film festival that sprang from it.

The largest independent festival in the United States, it gave a leg up to hundreds of up-and-coming independent filmmakers over the years including Quentin Tarantino, Robert Rodriguez, Jane Schoenbrun, Kevin Smith and Paul Thomas Anderson.

When we look back on his body of work, though, one thing becomes plainly obvious.

While Redford may have used his looks to initially open the Hollywood doors to success and fame, it was his talent and dedication to his craft that kept those doors open.

A versatile actor, director and producer who gave back to the industry just as much, if not more, than he took. For this, Redford was much, much more than a pretty face.

Daryl Sparkes, Senior Lecturer, Media Studies and Production, University of Southern Queensland

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Australia has seen a dramatic transformation of retirement over the past 20 years, with more Australians delaying retirement than ever before, reshaping expectations for later life.

This shift matters because it marks a fundamental change in how people transition out of the workforce — with important implications for financial security in later life.

The decision to retire is no longer driven purely by personal preference or age alone. It’s increasingly shaped by policy, housing wealth, super balances and whether someone can afford to stop working.

In 2003, about 70% of women and almost half of men aged 60–64 had fully retired from the workforce. Twenty years later, those numbers have fallen to 41% and 27% respectively. For people aged 65–69, retirement rates have also dropped – from 86% to 66% among women, and from 73% to 61% among men.

These figures come from the latest annual report from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) Survey, released today.

The HILDA Survey has been following the same households every year since 2001, which makes it possible to examine how the lives of Australians have changed across several aspects. Funded by the Australian government and managed by the Melbourne Institute, the survey is one of Australia’s most valuable social research tools.

I am part of the team that collects and analyses the data – here’s what we found.

How policy changes have influenced retirement age

The survey has included a special module on retirement every four years since 2003. The latest data, from 2023, show a clear and continuing trend: people are retiring later in life.

Policy changes are a major factor behind this shift. Since 2003, the age pension eligibility age has risen from 65 to 67 through two major reforms.

First, the eligibility age was equalised for men and women at 65 by July 2013. This was followed by a gradual increase to 67 for everyone between 2017 and 2023. Other factors likely include better health, increased workforce participation among women, and broader changes in social and economic expectations around retirement.

Still, retirement at younger ages hasn’t disappeared entirely – and for some people, it’s not a choice. Health problems remain the most common reason Australians give for retiring.

In 2023, 29% of recent retirees in our survey said they left work because of their own or a loved one’s health. That number has come down from 39% in 2003, reflecting longer life expectancy and better health outcomes, but health issues remain the most cited reason for retirement.

Job-related factors – such as redundancy or pressure from an employer – are another major factor cited by recent retirees. And financial reasons, such as becoming eligible for the pension, have also become more common. The share of recent retirees citing financial reasons as their main motivation has risen from 13% in 2003 to 21% in 2023.

The super gap is narrowing, but still there

The new HILDA data also shows superannuation balances are rising, but not evenly.

In 2023, the median super balance at retirement was just under A$191,000 for women and $310,000 for men. That’s a marked improvement for women – up more than 110% in real dollars (adjusted for inflation) since 2015 – but large gender gaps remain. In 2023, the median super balance at retirement was more than 1.5 times higher for men than women.

Yet these gaps are dwarfed by another source of inequality in retirement: housing wealth. Among recent retirees, 67% owned their home outright in 2023, down from 75% in 2003. These homeowners had average total wealth – including superannuation and home equity – of around $1.66 million. By contrast, those still paying off a mortgage had lower wealth, averaging about $1.48 million.

The wealth divide in later life

But the real divide is between homeowners and renters.

In 2023, 12% of recent retirees were renting privately – double the share from 2003. These retirees had no housing wealth and far less in super. In 2023, 59% of them retired with less than $100,000 in superannuation, compared to just 26% for homeowners. The overall financial position of renters is much more precarious in retirement, with two out of three living in poverty.

This shift has profound implications for future generations.

Housing plays a central role in shaping economic wellbeing in later life. People who retire without owning a home face much higher ongoing costs and have fewer options if health or income shocks occur. Unlike homeowners, they don’t benefit from rising property values or reduced housing expenses. And they’re more exposed to rent increases and housing insecurity.

Unfortunately, the number of retirees in this position is likely to grow. Homeownership is falling among younger Australians, especially those without access to family wealth. And while super balances are improving, renters will burn through their retirement savings much faster than homeowners, just to keep a roof over their head.

Australia’s retirement system is built on the assumption of homeownership. For most homeowners, it allows for a comfortable life after work.

But for renters, the picture is increasingly uncertain. If current trends simply persist – and housing affordability doesn’t get worse – then nearly one in four retirees could be renters by 2043.

Kyle Peyton, Senior research fellow, The University of Melbourne

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Australians are living longer than ever before. While this is broadly good news, ageing well comes with a range of challenges.

As people grow older, they’re more likely to develop multiple chronic conditions, including heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure, and cognitive problems such as dementia.

These conditions often mean people need to take more medications. Around one in three Australians aged over 70 take five or more different medications. While these can be important, and even lifesaving, managing multiple medications can become a major challenge in itself.

We wanted to understand more about how older Australians use medications. In a new study, we looked at ten years of national data from the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS), which subsidises medications for eligible Australians.

What did we find?

Using a 10% sample of Australians between 2013–23, we examined how often people aged 65 and over visited prescribers and pharmacies for the dispensing of their PBS medicines. Prescribers included GPs and other medical specialists, for example.

We found older Australians visited their prescribers an average of five times a year and made 16 pharmacy visits annually for the supply of their PBS medications. In 2023, people over 65 had an average of 31 PBS-subsidised medicines dispensed throughout the year (this figure may include repeats of the same medicine).

We also found the number of older Australians using five or more regular PBS medications increased by 32% (from 1.03 million to 1.35 million) from 2013 to 2023, likely driven by population ageing.

It’s important to note our study only captured PBS-subsidised medications that were dispensed. Prescriptions that weren’t filled or those not subsidised by the PBS (such as over-the-counter medications and supplements) weren’t included, meaning the true number of medications older people are using is likely even higher.

Managing medications

While medications are essential for managing health, they can also pose risks. Taking more medications often means a higher likelihood of errors, side effects, drug interactions and hospitalisations.

What’s more, as we age, physiological changes such as reduced kidney and liver function can increase the risk of medication-related harms. Depending on the individual, it could come to a point where the risk of harm eventually outweighs the benefits of the medication.

Sometimes, when it comes to medications, less can be more.

As well as the physical health risks, managing multiple medications can be complex and demanding for older adults and their families. More medications mean more doctors’ visits, more trips to the pharmacy, and prescription costs can also quickly add up. All this can influence what daily life looks like for older people.

Meet ‘Jean’

Let’s look at a hypothetical case study. Jean is 80 and lives on her own. She is on ten different medications for conditions including high blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes, arthritis, reflux and sleep problems. Some need to be taken multiple times a day, meaning she takes more than ten tablets daily.

Jean’s routine revolves around managing her medications, remembering what to take and when, coping with medication side effects including dizziness and tiredness, and making frequent trips to the doctor and pharmacy.

She’s stopped going to her weekly bowls game, and even lunch outings have become stressful as she needs to remember her pills and time them around meals. Her daughter helps with transport and picking up scripts, but the complexity of her medications has affected her lifestyle, independence, and enjoyment of life.

Although this case study is fictional, it reflects the circumstances many older people find themselves in with regards to medication use.

What can be done?

It’s important for older people taking multiple medications to talk to their doctor or pharmacist about whether their current medication regimen is still right for them, and how to manage their medication safely and effectively.

Many Australians, particularly older adults, could be eligible to be referred by their GP for a government-funded medication review. These medication reviews are conducted by a credentialed pharmacist and designed to help people get the most benefit from their medications while minimising any potential harms.

However this service remains under-utilised, which motivated a recent campaign to improve awareness and uptake.

Let’s return to Jean. Fortunately, she recently received a detailed medication review.

The reviewing pharmacist was able to make some practical changes to the timing of when Jean takes some of her medications. Also, by suggesting products that combine more than one medication in a single tablet, the pharmacist reduced the number of tablets Jean needs to take every day.

The pharmacist also worked with Jean’s community pharmacy to repackage Jean’s medications into a pill organiser and helped establish a reminder system to help Jean remember to take her medications at the correct times and when to refill her prescriptions.

Finally, the pharmacist queried several of Jean’s medications with her doctor in light of side effects and changes in her health status. As a result, the dose of one medication was halved, and another was discontinued.

Jean now plans to have her medications reviewed annually.

Older Australians tell us they want to enjoy happier, healthier and more fulfilling lives. With the right support, there’s a real opportunity to reduce the burden of taking multiple medications, and help older Australians like Jean not just live longer, but live well.

Hui Wen Quek, PhD candidate, Discipline of Pharmacy, The University of Western Australia; Amy T Page, Associate Professor, School of Health and Clinical Sciences, Pharmacy, The University of Western Australia; Christopher Etherton-Beer, Professor in Geriatric Medicine, The University of Western Australia, and Kenneth Lee, Senior Lecturer, Pharmacy, School of Health and Clinical Sciences, The University of Western Australia

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

“This is a game changer”.

That’s how Paul Scully, New South Wales Minister for Planning and Public Spaces, described the state government’s launch of a tender for an artificial intelligence (AI) solution to the housing crisis earlier this month.

The system, which is aimed at cutting red tape and getting more homes built fast, is expected to be functioning by the end of 2025.

“This is allowing construction to get underway and new keys into new doors,” Scully added.

The announcement was later endorsed by federal treasurer Jim Chalmers as a model for other states and territories to replicate, to “unlock more housing” and “boost productivity across the economy”.

Speeding up building approvals is a key concern of the so-called abundance agenda for boosting economic growth.

Those wheels are already in motion elsewhere in Australia. Tasmania is developing an AI policy, and South Australia is trialling a small-scale pilot for specific dwelling applications to allow users to submit digital architectural drawings to be automatically assessed against prescribed criteria.

But will AI really be a quick fix to Australia’s housing crisis?

Cutting red tape

Housing and AI were both key themes at last month’s productivity roundtable.

In a joint media release, federal Minister for Housing Clare O’Neil and Minister for the Environment and Water Murray Watt said “easing the regulatory burden on builders” is what Australia needs.

They point to the backlog of 26,000 homes currently stuck in assessment under environmental protection laws as a clear choke point. And AI is going to be used to “simplify and speed up assessments and approvals”.

None of this, however, explains AI’s precise role within the complex machinery of the planning system, leaving much to speculation.

Will the role of AI be limited to checking applications for completeness and classifying and validating documents, as Victorian councils are already exploring? Or drafting written elements of assessments, as is already the case in the Australian Capital Territory?

Or will it go further? Will AI agents, for example, have some autonomy in parts of the assessment process? If so, where exactly will this be? How will it be integrated into existing infrastructure? And most importantly, to what extent will expert judgement be displaced?

A tempting quick fix

Presenting AI as a quick fix for Australia’s housing shortage might be tempting. But it risks distracting from deeper systemic issues such as labour market bottlenecks, financial and tax incentives, and shrinking social and affordable housing.

The technology is also quietly reshaping the planning system – and the role of planners within it – with serious consequences.

Planning is not just paperwork waiting to be automated. It is judgement exercised in site visits, in listening to stakeholders, and in weighing local context against the broader one.

Stripping that away can make both the system and the people brittle, displacing planners’ expertise and blurring responsibility when things go wrong. And when errors involving AI happen, it can be very hard to trace them, with research showing explainability has been the technology’s Achilles’ heel.

The NSW government suggests putting a human in charge of the final decision is enough to solve these concerns.

But the machine doesn’t just sit quietly in the corner waiting for the approve button to be pressed. It nudges. It frames. It shapes what gets seen and what gets ignored in different stages of assessment, often in ways that aren’t obvious at all.

For example, highlighting some ecological risks over others can simply tilt an assessor’s briefing, even when local communities might have entirely different concerns. Or when AI ranks one assessment pathway as the “best fit” based on patterns buried in its training data, the assessor may simply drift toward that option, not realising the scope and direction of their choices have already been narrowed.

Lessons from Robodebt

Centrelink’s Online Compliance Intervention program – more commonly known as Robodebt – carries some important lessons here. Sold as a way to make debt recovery more “efficient”, it soon collapsed into a $4.7 billion fiasco.

In that case, an automated spreadsheet – not even AI – harmed thousands of people, triggered a hefty class action and shattered public trust in the government.

If governments now see AI as a tool to reform planning and assessments, they shouldn’t rush in headlong.

The fear of missing out may be real. But the wiser move is to pause and ask first: what problem are we actually trying to solve with AI, and does everyone even agree it’s the real problem?

Only then comes the harder question of how to do it responsibly, without stumbling into the same avoidable consequences as Robodebt.

Responsible innovation offers a roadmap forward

Responsible innovation means anticipating risks and unintended consequences early on – by including and deliberating with those who will use and be affected by the system, proactively looking for the blind spots, and being responsive to the impacts.

There are abundant research case studies, tools and frameworks in the field of responsible innovation that can guide the design, development and deployment of AI systems in planning. But the key is to engage with root causes and unintended consequences, and to question the underlying assumptions about the vision and purpose of the AI system.

We can’t afford to ignore the basics of responsible innovation. Otherwise, this so-called “gamechanger” to the housing crisis might find itself sitting alongside Robodebt as yet another cautionary tale of how innovations sold as efficiency gains can so go wrong.

The author would like to acknowledge the enormous contribution of Negar Yazdi, an experienced urban planner and a member of ANU’s Responsible Innovation Lab and Planning Institute of Australia, to this article.

Ehsan Nabavi, Senior Lecturer in Technology and Society, Responsible Innovation Lab, Australian National University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Smoke-drying mummification of human remains was practised by hunter-gatherers across southern China, southeast Asia and beyond as far back as 12,000 years ago, my colleagues and I report in new research published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

This is the earliest known evidence of mummification anywhere in the world, far older than better-known examples from ancient Egypt and South America.

We studied remains from sites dated to between 12,000 and 4,000 years ago, but the tradition never vanished completely. It persisted into modern times in parts of the New Guinea Highlands and Australia.

Hunter-gatherer burials in southern China and Southeast Asia

In southern China and Southeast Asia, tightly crouched or squatting burials are a hallmark of the hunter-gatherers who inhabited the region between roughly 20,000 and 4,000 years ago.

Archaeologists working across the region for a long time have classified these graves as straightforward “primary burials”. This means the body was laid to rest intact in a single ceremony.

However, our colleague Hirofumi Matsumura, an experienced physical anthropologist and anatomist, noticed some skeletons were arranged in ways that defied anatomical sense.

Combined with this observation, we often saw some bones in these bodies were partly burnt. The signs of burning, such as charring, were visible mainly in the points of the body with less muscle mass and thinner soft tissue coverage.

We began to wonder if perhaps the deceased were treated through a more complicated process than simple burial.

A casual conversation in the field

A turning point came in September 2017, during a short break from our excavation at the Bau Du site in central Vietnam.

The late Kim Dung Nguyen highlighted the difficulties of interpreting the situation where skeletons were found, likely intentionally placed and seated against large rocks. Matsumura noted problems with their bone positions.

I remember blurting out – half joking but genuinely curious – “Could these burials be similar to the smoked mummies of Papua New Guinea?”

Matsumura thought about this idea seriously. Thanks to generous support and cooperation from many colleagues, that moment marked the real beginning of our research into this mystery.

How we identified the ancient smoked mummies

With our new curiosity, we began looking at photographs of modern smoked-dried mummification practices in the New Guinea Highlands in books and on the internet.

In January 2019, we went to Wamena in Papua (Indonesia) to observe several modern smoked mummies kept in private households. The similarity to our ancient remains was striking. But most of the skeletons in our excavation showed no outwardly obvious signs of burning.

We realised we needed a scientific test to prove our hypothesis. If a body was smoked by low-temperature fire – while still protected by skin, muscle and tissue – the bones would not be obviously blackened. But they could still retain subtle signs or microscopic traces of past firing or smoking.

Then came the COVID pandemic, which led to travel restrictions, preventing us from travelling anywhere. My colleagues and I were spread across different regions, but we sought various ways to continue the project.

Eventually, we tested bones from 54 burials across 11 sites using two independent laboratory techniques called X-ray diffraction and Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy. These methods can detect microscopic changes in the structure of bone material caused by high temperatures.

The results confirmed the remains had been exposed to low heat. In other words, almost all of them had been smoked.

More than 10,000 years of ritual

The samples, discovered in southern China, Vietnam and Indonesia, represent the oldest known examples of mummification. They are far older than the well-known practices of the Chinchorro culture in northern Chile (about 7,000 years ago) and even ancient Egypt’s Old Kingdom (about 4,500 years ago).

Remarkably, this burial practice was common across East Asia, and likely also in Japan. It may date back more than 20,000 years in Southeast Asia.

It continued until around 4,000 years ago, when new ways of life began to take hold. Our research reveals a unique blend of technique, tradition and belief. This cultural practice has endured for thousands of years and spread across a very broad region.

A visible form bridging time and memory

Ethnographic records show this tradition survived in southern Australia well into the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

In the New Guinea Highlands, some communities have even kept the practice alive into recent times. Significantly, the hunter-gatherer groups of southern China and Southeast Asia were closely connected to Indigenous peoples of New Guinea and Australia, both in some physical attributes and in their genetic ancestry.

In both southern Australia and Papua New Guinea, ethnographic records show that preparing a single smoked mummy could take as long as three months of continuous care. Such extraordinary devotion was possible only through deep love and powerful spiritual belief.

This tradition echoes a truth as old as humanity itself: the timeless longing that families and loved ones might remain bound together forever – carried across the ages, in whatever form that togetherness may endure.

Hsiao-chun Hung, Senior Research Fellow, School of Culture, History & Language, Australian National University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

In 2023, Treasurer Jim Chalmers announced the government would measure what matters to the wellbeing of Australians as a complement to the traditional economic measures in the national accounts.

The purpose of the report, called Measuring What Matters, is to help us understand whether the lives of Australians are improving or deteriorating. It measures more than economic output, such as gross domestic product (GDP).

Measuring What Matters has five wellbeing themes – healthy, secure, sustainable, cohesive, and prosperous. The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) has just published the 2025 results.

How to read the 50 indicators

It can be overwhelming to wade through the 50 indicators across the 12 dimensions in the five themes that make up the Measuring What Matters framework. What’s important is the overall direction of change – are things getting better or worse in each area of wellbeing?

There are some things to be aware of in trying to decipher the measures. The data will reflect events, like the COVID pandemic, that have mostly temporary impacts. In addition, many of the indicators are subjective – that is, they report perceptions or attitudes.

These can reflect changes in popular discourse and expectations, rather then a more fundamental change in objectively measured outcomes. The disconnect between rates of crime and perceptions of crime is one example. However, how people feel is an important part of wellbeing, so people reporting feeling less safe matters, even if measures of crime are trending down.

Health measures are not improving

So, with these caveats in mind, what does the 2025 report tell us? Here are a few key indicators in each of the five themes:

Healthy – The trends in this report show the health of the Australian population is slowly deteriorating. Gains in life expectancy at birth have flatlined at 85 for women and 81 for men. The share with chronic conditions rose to 50% in 2022 from 43% in 2007–08. On access to health services, 39% of people with a disability reported needing more formal assistance than they received. The one good bit of news was that the share of people saying they delayed or did not see a GP when needed due to cost ticked down slightly in 2024.

Secure – The indicator of feeling safe to walk at night trended down (to 74% for men and 46% for women). Feeling safe based on world events followed a similar pattern.

The importance of looking at results across groups is stark in indicators such as homelessness. In 2021, 48 in 10,000 people were assisted by homeless services. The rate was 91 for people between 19 and 24 years, and 307 per 10,000 for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

Sustainable – Greenhouse emissions flatlined in 2024, as did the efficiency with which resources are reused and recycled. The rate of decline in the index of biological diversity has slowed but it is still heading the the wrong direction.

Cohesive – The indicators reflecting elements of cohesiveness tell a mixed story. Acceptance of diversity had risen over the last decade but fell slightly in 2024 to 71%, but the measure of a sense of belonging has been falling since 2007. Trust in other people fell slightly between 2021 and 2024 to 46%, but there was a slight rise in trust in the police (68%) and national government (49%).

Prosperous – Income per capita was down slightly in 2023–24 (to A$74,727) following a post-pandemic rise. A measure of inequality, the Gini coefficient, fell back toward its long term level of 0.3, following a sharp rise (showing an increase in inequality) post-pandemic.

The education and skills indicators tell a mixed story. NAPLAN provides the most recent data of all measures with 2025 showing an improvement in Year 3 numeracy, but a continued decline in reading. Less encouraging is that the share of children on track in all domains of childhood development has reversed its improving trend to fall slightly to 53% in 2024.

One way to rate government performance

The limitations of the national accounts in measuring what matters for people’s wellbeing has long been recognised, including by its creator, Simon Kuznets. The System of National Accounts was established to ensure comparability across countries for economic statistics.

Other reports have been developed to delve deeper into areas that cross industries, such as tourism, or that fall outside the standard economic measures, such as health and welfare, household and unpaid work, and the longer-term impact on the environment. While the methodology for these reports has been standardised across countries, measures of wellbeing tend to be more country specific and tailored to their policy needs and data availability.

Australian efforts to measure wellbeing are not new. The Bureau of Statistics’ ambitious project called Measuring Australia’s Progress was cancelled in the 2014 Abbott government budget cuts.

This latest version is a worthy exercise, although the lack of a headline number, like GDP, makes it hard to report. But this is what policy making has to cope with – lots of competing priorities, programs pushing against underlying deteriorating trends, and expectations driving satisfaction with government performance. Measuring What Matters is not a scorecard for government performance. But it is good start.

Jenny Gordon, Honorary Professor, Centre for Social Research and Methods, Australian National University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

ANZ Bank has agreed to pay a record fine of A$240 million after admitting to various forms of misconduct that occurred “over many years”.

Announced on Monday, the fine marks the culmination of a major investigation by Australia’s corporate regulator, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC), into multiple allegations of misconduct across the bank’s retail and institutional divisions.

This penalty still requires approval from the Federal Court. But if it seems an eye-watering sum, that’s because it is the largest fine ASIC has ever sought against a single company.

So, what was this scandal all about? And what could this outcome mean – both for corporate regulation and customers?

What has ANZ admitted to?

According to ASIC, the record penalty being sought relates to admissions of misconduct across four key matters by ANZ. These are:

1. Handling a federal government bond deal: “Unconscionable” conduct in the management of a $14 billion government bond deal in April 2023, and incorrect reporting of bond trading data to the federal government, “overstating the volumes by tens of billions of dollars over almost two years”.

2. Customer hardship: Not responding to hundreds of customer hardship notices, sometimes for two years or more, nor having adequate hardship procedures.

3. Interest rates: Making false and misleading statements on its savings interest rates, resulting in the wrong rate being paid to “tens of thousands of customers”.

4. Deceased customers: “Failing to refund fees charged to thousands of dead customers” and “not responding to loved ones trying to deal with deceased estates within the required timeframe”.

A huge fine, but not the maximum

At $240 million, the announced penalty is the largest ASIC has ever sought against a company. However, the amount that can be imposed on financial institutions for contraventions of financial services law, such as the ASIC Act and the National Consumer Credit Protection Act, is astronomically high.

Under provisions in place from 2019, the civil penalty could have been set at 10% of ANZ’s annual turnover, currently capped at $825 million per contravention.

One point of comparison is the $125 million penalty ordered against Volkswagen in 2019 for misleading consumers about emissions (and later upheld on appeal). Notably, this was one contravention, not four as the case with the ANZ. And the contravention by Volkswagen related to the prohibition on misleading conduct in the Australian Consumer Law.

ANZ has agreed to the penalty rather than contesting the matter in court. Given the potentially higher penalties that could have been imposed, this may be a sensible, economic strategy, especially given the savings in litigation cost.

But we still might want to think about the outcome for the consumers and the willingness of banks to actually change their systems and processes.

What about customers?

ASIC Chair Joe Longo said ANZ has betrayed the trust of Australians “time and time again”.

Notably, many of the matters in question in this case relate to misconduct affecting ANZ’s retail customers. On Monday, ANZ Chairman Paul O’Sullivan apologised to customers and said the bank would take action.

But the need for better oversight of customer-facing compliance was raised in 2019, following the banking royal commission. One of the key recommendations put forth was recommendation 5.6: “changing culture and governance”:

This called on financial services providers, “as often as reasonably possible”, to:

• assess the entity’s culture and its governance
• identify any problems with that culture and governance
• deal with those problems
• determine whether the changes it has made have been effective.

ASIC’s press release noted the regulator has now brought 11 civil penalties proceedings against ANZ since 2016, including those announced today. ASIC has been investigating financial services providers charging fees for no services since 2016.

That doesn’t look like progress, so customers might reasonably ask what this penalty really means for them.

Where do funds from the fine go?

One issue at stake is monetary compensation for affected customers. The penalty amount is paid to the Commonwealth. Often, ASIC asks a bank to remediate customers as part of an agreement on the penalty that will be awarded.

The documents involved in the application to the court suggest ANZ is completing the required remediation. Sometimes, the penalty award is followed by litigation or class actions brought by disgruntled customers to obtain compensation.

The other issue is what is sometimes called “corporate culture”, but really means complying with the law. Ideally, if approved by the Federal Court, the sheer size of this penalty should send a strong message to other banks and financial institutions about the importance of being fully compliant with the law.

Notably, ANZ has announced it will spend $150 million implementing a plan to address shortcomings in its non-financial risk management practices.

We need better systems and processes

Across the rest of the financial services sector, there is also power in the signal ASIC is sending: it will continue to pursue these kinds of misconduct and the reputational loss from any contraventions.

At the end of the day, compliance comes through good systems and processes that are capable of identifying misconduct and then responding in a timely manner. Australia’s banks should not be making “mistakes” of this scale.

Perhaps the AI chatbots being rolled out by the corporate sector should also be deployed to assist with legal oversight and consumer protection, while retaining robust human oversight.

Jeannie Marie Paterson, Professor of Law (consumer protections and credit law), The University of Melbourne

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

For many plants, spring is just a really good time. They have endured a cold, dark, hard winter and in some places, winters can be murderously tough for plants.

It makes sense that when spring comes around, plants are ready to take advantage of warmer temperatures, longer days and more sunshine. They resume growth after their winter dormancies and many rapidly produce flowers.

You’ve probably been spotting the sudden springtime explosion of flowers everywhere on your neighbourhood walks, your commute or in your own garden.

But why exactly do flowers go crazy in spring, and how do they know exactly when to show up for duty? Here’s the science.

Letting loose in a big rush

For many plants, the conditions for growth in spring are close to ideal. Water, warmth and sunlight are suddenly readily available.

Plants don’t have to hold back anymore. They can resume almost unconstrained growth and have the energy and resources to invest in flowering.

Your garden (or a patch of natural bush) is, in fact, a highly competitive environment.

Plants will rush to produce masses of flowers in the hope this will give individual plants an advantage in the reproductive race that ultimately might lead to seed and reproduction. This, after all, is the universal goal of biological success.

There is another factor, however, that also influences spring flowering.

The birds and the bees (and other insects)

Flowering plants (known as angiosperms) are relatively recent arrivals on the evolutionary time line. They first became significant during the Cretaceous Period, about 100 to 120 million years ago.

By then, insects had already been on the scene and evolving for millions of years. Birds had evolved more or less at the same time as these flowering plants, becoming more common during the Cretaceous Period too, but a few million years earlier.

These creatures, the plants noticed, were excellent at dispersing pollen and seeds. Many flowering plants evolved to use their helpful services.

Before the angiosperms, ancient plants used spores for reproduction. Conifers, which had evolved hundreds of millions of years before angiosperms, used wind to disperse their pollen. Seed dispersal was often limited, unreliable and slow.

Flowering plants needed to attract pollinators and seed dispersal vectors, such as insects and birds. Many developed flashy and showy flowers: the epitome of good advertising.

So flowering in spring coincides with the return of migratory birds and the life cycles of insects (insect activity usually declines over winter).

It makes great sense that many plants flower when the insects and birds so vital to their reproductive success are also getting active (and getting busy).

It is a matter of great timing that benefits all involved.

Timing is everything

The way flowering plants time their flowering is superb biology.

Many people assume warmer temperatures trigger spring flowering. But temperature is renowned for its variability and unpredictability. Temperature is not a good indicator of season or time.

So most plants measure day length using a green pigment called phytochrome (literally plant colour). This exists in two forms, one of which is active in triggering plant metabolism.

This phytochrome system enables plants to measure, with remarkable accuracy, both day length (also known as photoperiod) and the night length.

The ratio of the two forms allows plants to measure time like a biological clock.

Photoperiod is a very accurate and reliable measure of time and season and so plants nearly always get their flowering times in spring right.

In some plants there is an extra feature that can affect flowering, where the plants produce an inhibitor (abscisic acid) before winter that keeps them dormant.

Abscisic acid is cold-sensitive. So when spring comes, the inhibitor level is low. This, combined with photoperiod, helps initiate flowering.

The two mechanisms combined are a very reliable and consistent trigger for flowering.

Advantages to being a flower in spring

Flowering in spring means plants can use insects and birds to facilitate pollination and disperse seeds.

The pollen can be spread effectively and in a targeted way to other flowers of the same species. Less valuable pollen is wasted than if you’re relying on wind dispersal.

The seed can spread over much greater distances. The seed for many species will germinate during spring when growth conditions are highly favourable.

It’s not a coincidence flowering plants with this type of reproductive biology spread around the globe very quickly after their emergence during the Cretaceous Period.

They are highly efficient and successful plants.

Not everyone can be a flower in spring

So why don’t all flowering plants bloom in spring?

It is one of the delights of biology that there is nearly always room for contrarians and exceptions.

Some plants flower in autumn or perhaps during winter and some in summer, but there is always advantage in them doing so.

Sometimes it’s to avoid the fierce competition from all those other spring flowers in attracting pollinators.

Sometimes it’s because they are focused on a particular insect or bird vector that another season suits better.

Sometimes it’s because the plants can only survive in a highly competitive environment by not flowering in spring.

In the complex web of plant biology, a one-size-fits all approach never works.

Spring flowering has a lot going for it – as the current profusion of flowers attests – but many plants have made success of being different.

Gregory Moore, Senior Research Associate, School of Agriculture, Food and Ecosystem Sciences, The University of Melbourne

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

You’re introduced to someone and your attention catches on their eyes. They might be a rich, earthy brown, a pale blue, or the rare green that shifts with every flicker of light. Eyes have a way of holding us, of sparking recognition or curiosity before a single word is spoken. They are often the first thing we notice about someone, and sometimes the feature we remember most.

Across the world, human eyes span a wide palette. Brown is by far the most common shade, especially in Africa and Asia, while blue is most often seen in northern and eastern Europe. Green is the rarest of all, found in only about 2% of the global population. Hazel eyes add even more diversity, often appearing to shift between green and brown depending on the light.

So, what lies behind these differences?

It’s all in the melanin

The answer rests in the iris, the coloured ring of tissue that surrounds the pupil. Here, a pigment called melanin does most of the work.

Brown eyes contain a high concentration of melanin, which absorbs light and creates their darker appearance. Blue eyes contain very little melanin. Their colour doesn’t come from pigment at all but from the scattering of light within the iris, a physical effect known as the Tyndall effect, a bit like the effect that makes the sky look blue.

In blue eyes, the shorter wavelengths of light (such as blue) are scattered more effectively than longer wavelengths like red or yellow. Due to the low concentration of melanin, less light is absorbed, allowing the scattered blue light to dominate what we perceive. This blue hue results not from pigment but from the way light interacts with the eye’s structure.

Green eyes result from a balance, a moderate amount of melanin layered with light scattering. Hazel eyes are more complex still. Uneven melanin distribution in the iris creates a mosaic of colour that can shift depending on the surrounding ambient light.

What have genes got to do with it?

The genetics of eye colour is just as fascinating.

For a long time, scientists believed a simple “brown beats blue” model, controlled by a single gene. Research now shows the reality is much more complex. Many genes contribute to determining eye colour. This explains why children in the same family can have dramatically different eye colours, and why two blue-eyed parents can sometimes have a child with green or even light brown eyes.

Eye colour also changes over time. Many babies of European ancestry are born with blue or grey eyes because their melanin levels are still low. As pigment gradually builds up over the first few years of life, those blue eyes may shift to green or brown.

In adulthood, eye colour tends to be more stable, though small changes in appearance are common depending on lighting, clothing, or pupil size. For example, blue-grey eyes can appear very blue, very grey or even a little green depending on ambient light. More permanent shifts are rarer but can occur as people age, or in response to certain medical conditions that affect melanin in the iris.

The real curiosities

Then there are the real curiosities.

Heterochromia, where one eye is a different colour from the other, or one iris contains two distinct colours, is rare but striking. It can be genetic, the result of injury, or linked to specific health conditions. Celebrities such as Kate Bosworth and Mila Kunis are well-known examples. Musician David Bowie’s eyes appeared as different colours because of a permanently dilated pupil after an accident, giving the illusion of heterochromia.

In the end, eye colour is more than just a quirk of genetics and physics. It’s a reminder of how biology and beauty intertwine. Each iris is like a tiny universe, rings of pigment, flecks of gold, or pools of deep brown that catch the light differently every time you look.

Eyes don’t just let us see the world, they also connect us to one another. Whether blue, green, brown, or something in-between, every pair tells a story that’s utterly unique, one of heritage, individuality, and the quiet wonder of being human.

Davinia Beaver, Postdoctoral research fellow, Clem Jones Centre for Regenerative Medicine, Bond University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Lady Gaga is leading the nominations for this year’s MTV Video Music Awards – merely her latest accolade.

Since she burst onto the scene with The Fame album in 2008, Gaga has become one of the world’s most recognisable pop stars. Her hit Born This Way even topped Billboard’s list of the 100 greatest LGBTQIA+ anthems of all time. The track defines her commitment to celebrating diversity in all its forms.

While she is known for filling dance floors and dominating pop culture, she has also sparked serious academic interest. Scholars have explored her influence on music, fashion, gender and sexuality. Yet her use of religious imagery remains relatively under-examined. As a theologian, I have studied Gaga’s music and its rich religious symbolism.

Gaga’s most overtly political and theological album was Born This Way, released in 2011. It also inspired the Born This Way Foundation, which she founded with her mother to “empower and inspire young people to build a kinder, braver world that supports their mental health”.

I argue Gaga’s work makes her a kind of “musical public theologian”. In other words, an artist who brings theological arguments into public debate, particularly around LGBTQIA+ inclusion, often in tension with religious communities.

Born This Way

Take the title track. Here she tackles the theological opposition to LGBTQIA+ inclusion head on, in what might seem a fairly obvious and unsophisticated way: “No matter gay, straight, or bi, lesbian, transgender life, I’m on the right track, baby, I was born to survive … I’m beautiful in my way ’cause God makes no mistakes, I’m on the right track, baby, I was born this way.”

In a world where some claim that God’s design allows only for heterosexuality, Gaga turns this argument upside down. If God makes no mistakes, she insists, then diversity itself is divinely intended.

So far, so simple. But there is a more complicated story to be told about Gaga’s theological affirmation of difference. Some queer theorists are uneasy with the idea of being “born this way”, and the notion that identity is fixed by biology alone.

This is where deeper analysis of Born This Way pays dividends. The video offers a more fluid understanding of identity as something that can be performed.

It opens with a surreal sci-fi creation myth, scored with the theme from Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo (1958), a film in which identity is not straightforwardly “given”. The dancers adopt multiple postures resembling ovaries and wombs – a visual metaphor for the possibility of new births – suggestive of our ability to take on fresh identities for ourselves.

Gaga doesn’t do the work of connecting the lyrics and the visuals. That goes on in the world of queer theology, which is an approach that places LGBTQIA+ people at the centre of faith. But Gaga makes a significant public theological statement by holding them together in this song and its accompanying video.

Central to Gaga’s creative vision and resistance to dominant narratives telling people who and how they should be, is the theme of monstrosity. She calls herself “Mother Monster” and her fans “little monsters”, reclaiming a word often used to exclude or belittle those who are different.

The “Manifesto of Mother Monster”, at the beginning of the Born This Way video, presents a mythic creation story where freedom and difference are celebrated. It builds on the ambiguous place of monsters in religion.

Garden of Eden

Although her later albums are less overtly theological, Gaga has continued to weave religious themes into her music, including those of monstrosity. On her latest album Mayhem, for example, which was released earlier this year, the song Garden of Eden plays with the biblical story of the fall of Adam and Eve.

At one level, the theological motif of taking a bite from the apple in Eden can be seen simply as a metaphor for indulging in a short-lived relationship that, for that very reason, disobeys more conservative expectations of sexual relationships. But here, too, Gaga’s lyrics can be read at a deeper level. The story of Adam and Eve is fundamental to Christian theology, and it can be used to enforce certain ways of being.

Instead, Gaga’s reinterpretation of Eden offers a liberating vision. There’s an invitation to rethink a story that has been used to divide the world neatly into good and evil. Instead of using scripture to police behaviour, she reimagines it as a story that opens up possibilities. This reflects the experiences of many of her fans, who may have felt excluded by dominant religious narratives.

Through her music and imagery, Gaga invites us to embrace difference and to question stories that oppress. She queers tradition, offering an alternative theology rooted in inclusivity and creativity. Her work demonstrates that theology does not belong only in churches or seminaries. It can be found in music videos, stadium tours and dance anthems.

In studying Gaga’s work, I have come to see her as a theologian in her own right. She transforms pop music into a space where faith, identity and power are re-imagined. That, to me, is why she is worth celebrating, not just as a pop icon, but as someone who has turned theology into art for a wider audience.

Stephen Roberts, Honorary Lecturer in Theology, Cardiff University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Just over a year ago, Nasa made a remarkable announcement. The Perseverance rover had found potential signs of ancient life on Mars. Now, the technical details behind that discovery have been published in a Nature paper that, despite its rather modest wording, may ultimately prove to be among the most significant in the history of science.

The bottom line is this: it might be life, but we won’t know for sure until we return the samples to Earth. Perseverance has already collected a fragment of the relevant rock — we just have to go and get it.

Indeed, Nasa has been working with the European Space Agency on a mission to go to Mars, retrieve the samples of rock collected by Perseverance and deliver them to Earth. This would include the sample from the rock that’s the subject of the Nature study. However, the mission, known as Mars Sample Return, has run into trouble because of rising costs.

In mid-2024, the Perseverance rover encountered a block of ancient mudstone, nicknamed Cheyava Falls, distinguished by its brick-red hue. This rock was laid down by water roughly four billion years ago. While most Martian rocks appear red due to a coating of oxidised (ferric) iron dust, Cheyava Falls is red through and through – the ferric iron is in the rock itself.

More intriguingly, Cheyava Falls is peppered with dozens of tiny pale spots, typically less than a millimetre across. These spots are fringed with a dark phosphorus-rich mineral, which also appears as tiny dots called poppy seeds that are scattered between the other spots. Associated with this mineral are traces of ancient organic compounds. (Organic compounds contain carbon and are fundamental to life on Earth, but they also exist in the absence of biology.)

What does this have to do with life?

All living organisms on Earth harness energy through oxidation-reduction (redox) reactions – transferring electron particles from chemicals known as reductants to compounds named oxidants. On Earth, for example, structures called mitochondria in animal cells transfer electrons from glucose (a reductant) to oxygen (an oxidant). Some rock dwelling bacteria use other kinds of organic compound instead of glucose, and ferric iron instead of oxygen.

When ferric iron is reduced to a different form, known as ferrous iron, it becomes soluble in water and either leaches away or reacts to form new, lighter-coloured minerals. The result is that many red rocks and sediments on Earth contain small bleached spots – “reduction spots” – strikingly similar to those found in Cheyava Falls. In fact, Perseverance subsequently spotted bleached features even more reminiscent of reduction spots at a site called Serpentine Rapids, but spent too little time there to analyse them and, unfortunately, didn’t collect any samples.

The new Nature paper builds on abstracts presented at the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference, held in Houston in March 2025, but with more detail and the added weight of peer review. It confirms that the pale spots are associated with organic matter, and that they contain ferrous iron and sulphur – specifically, an iron-sulphide mineral.

The most plausible interpretation is that redox reactions occurred within the rock after it formed, transferring electrons from organic matter to ferric iron and sulphate, and producing bleached zones where ferric iron was depleted.

Notably, these reactions – especially sulphate reduction – don’t typically occur at the low temperatures this rock experienced over its history. Unless microbes are involved, that is. Microbial oxidation of organic matter can also produce phosphate minerals, like those found at Cheyava Falls.

Without getting samples back to laboratories on Earth, there’s only so much we can really know about what happened at Cheyava Falls four billion years ago. Even so, no entirely satisfying non-biological explanation accounts for the full suite of observations made by Perseverance.

The new paper does a good job of making this clear, considering the possibilities one by one. But in astrobiology, the lack of a non-biological explanation isn’t where life detection ends – it’s where it begins. History tells us that when we can’t think of a non-biological explanation for something, it’s usually not because there isn’t one. It’s just that we haven’t thought of it yet.

So what happens next? First, astrobiologists around the world must explore which oxidation-reduction reactions involving iron, sulphur, organic compounds, and phosphate can occur with and without biology under conditions relevant to Cheyava Falls.

Second, Nasa and other space agencies must provide bold leadership on the Mars Sample Return mission. Yes, it will be expensive – possibly tens of billions of dollars – but the payoff could be the most important scientific discovery ever made.

Sean McMahon, Reader in Astrobiology, University of Edinburgh

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

“You have to keep beating it for longer,” my grandmother instructed me. “It isn’t pale yet. It’s still too yellow.” I didn’t ask how long this would take. I was nine years old, and I understood what my grandmother meant. You have to keep doing something until it works. It’s like asking: “Are we there yet?”

I watched for the miraculous transformation. The eggs, golden when first beaten, were lightening to a soft lemon colour. The texture was changing. You couldn’t see the sugar anymore; it had looked like sand, but now it was invisible, cloaked in the egg. My grandmother stopped beating, and lifted up the beater. A stream of thick liquid hung down, like the wet sand you used to reinforce a sandcastle. “Yes, that’s enough. Now add the melted butter. Slowly. Then the flour. We’ll need a bit more.”

My grandmother taught me to cook. She never weighed anything. The only measurement she used was a pink breakfast teacup, and it was more a useful scoop than a measure. Instead, she worked towards a desired result. You didn’t cook things for five minutes. You cooked things until you got the result you wanted. The first thing she taught me to make was bechamel sauce. She didn’t call it that. She called it white sauce with flavour. I could make it when I was five, and I still do it the same way.

Her cooking was preliterate, or, more exactly, a special kind of literacy, a grammar of ingredients and heat and air.

I’m a food historian and the author of English Food: A People’s History. I have never found the recipes of the middle ages as difficult to understand as most food historians. Perhaps because they look a little like my grandmother’s instructions.

Cooking in the middle ages

Take and make a crust in a trap, and take cruddes and wryng out þe wheyze, and drawe hem þurgh a straynour, and put in þe straynour crustes. Do þerto sugar the þridde part and somdel whyte of ayren, and shake þerin blomes of elren, and bake it up with eurose, and messe it forth.

This is a recipe for “sambocade” from a middle ages manuscript held in the British Library. Sambocade is an elderflower cheesecake of sorts. It uses curds – the beginnings of cheese – and the recipe gives quite detailed instructions on how to make them, a method a little like making Greek yoghurt. You add sugar, egg white and elderflowers, along with rosewater. Then you serve it.

A recipe like this is not a series of instructions. It is meant to act as a reminder, a series of quick notes to recall to mind something taught orally – something taught as my grandmother taught me.

Just as Google Maps will not tell me how to walk by putting one foot in front of the other, this kind of recipe doesn’t tell me what I’m looking for or how to achieve it. It doesn’t give exact measurements. It doesn’t really give any measurements at all. But if you made this recipe half a dozen times, you would soon understand the process required. And then, it would be yours, in a way that a recipe tested or created by another cook can never quite be yours.

In my kitchen I still keep my mother’s recipe book, a manuscript volume in which she tried to preserve recipes that were gifts from friends. All of it is in her handwriting.

It contains a recipe for cheesecake from the days when cheesecake was a little-known novelty; it notes that the recipe comes from an American friend. It contains exact quantities and exact baking times, although the result is a lot more strongly baked than the majority of cheesecakes now. The exact quantities preserve a memory of the effect that’s difficult to reconstruct from recipes that come from earlier times.

In the same way, I have only my memories of my grandmother’s cooking to preserve what she did; she was barely literate, and her own recipes consisted solely of lists of ingredients. These were kept in a shoe box and after she died, my mother threw it away on the grounds that it was of no possible value to anyone. All the same, every time I make a sponge cake, I say to myself, is it pale enough yet?

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Diane Purkiss, The William F Pollard Tutorial Fellow in English, University of Oxford

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

If you’ve been supermarket shopping lately, you might have noticed more foods with big, bold protein claims on black packaging – from powders and bars to yoghurt, bread and even coffee.

International surveys show people are shopping for more protein because they think it’ll help their fitness and health. But clever marketing can sway our judgement too.

Before your next shop, here’s what you should know about how protein is allowed to be sold to us. And as a food and nutrition scientist, I’ll offer some tips for choosing the best value meat or plant-based protein for every $1 you spend – and no, protein bars aren’t the winner.

‘Protein’ vs ‘increased protein’ claims

Let’s start with those “high protein” or “increased protein” claims we’re seeing more of on the shelves.

In Australia and New Zealand, there are actually rules and nuances about how and when companies can use those phrases.

Under those rules, labelling a product as a “protein” product implies it’s a “source” of protein. That means it has at least 5 grams of protein per serving.

“High protein” doesn’t have a specific meaning in the food regulations, but is taken to mean “good source”. Under the rules, a “good source” should have at least 10 grams of protein per serving.

Then there is the “increased protein” claim, which means it has at least 25% more protein than the standard version of the same food.

If you see a product labelled as a “protein” version, you might assume it has significantly more protein than the standard version. But this might not be the case.

Take, for example, a “protein”-branded, black-wrapped cheese: Mini Babybel Protein. It meets the Australian and New Zealand rules of being labelled as a “source” of protein, because it has 5 grams of protein per serving (in this case, in a 20 gram serve of cheese).

But what about the original red-wrapped Mini Babybel cheese? That has 4.6g of protein per 20 gram serving.

The difference between the original vs “protein” cheese is not even a 10% bump in protein content.

Black packaging by design

Food marketers use colours to give us signals about what’s in a package.

Green signals natural and environmentally friendly, reds and yellows are often linked to energy, and blue goes with coolness and hydration.

These days, black is often used as a visual shorthand for products containing protein.

But it’s more than that. Research also suggests black conveys high-quality or “premium” products. This makes it the perfect match for foods marketed as “functional” or “performance-boosting”.

The ‘health halo’ effect

When one attribute of a food is seen as positive, it can make us assume the whole product is health-promoting, even if that’s not the case. This is called a “health halo”.

For protein, the glow of the protein halo can make us blind to the other attributes of the food, such as added fats or sugars. We might be willing to pay more too.

It’s important to know protein deficiency is rare in countries like Australia. You can even have too much protein.

How to spend less to get more protein

If you do have good reason to think you need more protein, here’s how to get better value for your money.

Animal-based core foods are nutritionally dense and high-quality protein foods. Meats, fish, poultry, eggs, fish, and cheese will have between 11 to 32 grams of protein per 100 grams.

That could give you 60g in a chicken breast, 22g in a can of tuna, 17g in a 170g tub of Greek yoghurt, or 12g in 2 eggs.

In the animal foods, chicken is economical, delivering more than 30g of protein for each $1 spent.

But you don’t need to eat animal products to get enough protein.

In fact, once you factor in costs – and I made the following calculations based on recent supermarket prices – plant-based protein sources become even more attractive.

Legumes (such as beans, lentils and soybeans) have about 9g of protein per 100g, which is about half a cup. Legumes are in the range of 20g of protein per dollar spent, which is a similar cost ratio to a protein powder.

Nuts and seeds like sunflower seeds can have 7g in one 30g handful. Even one cup of simple frozen peas will provide about 7g of protein.

Peanuts at $6 per kilogram supply 42g of protein for each $1 spent.

Dry oats, at $3/kg have 13g of protein per 100g (or 5g in a half cup serve), that’s 33g of protein per dollar spent.

In contrast, processed protein bars are typically poor value, coming in at between 6-8g of protein per $1 spent, depending on if you buy them in a single serve, or in a box of five bars.

Fresh often beats processed on price and protein

Packaged products offer convenience and certainty. But if you rely on convenience, colours and keywords alone, you might not get the best deals or the most nutritious choices.

Choosing a variety of fresh and whole foods for your protein will provide a diversity of vitamins and minerals, while reducing risks associated with consuming too much of any one thing. And it can be done without breaking the bank.

Emma Beckett, Adjunct Senior Lecturer, Nutrition, Dietetics & Food Innovation - School of Health Sciences, UNSW Sydney

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Anthropic, an AI startup founded in 2021, has reached a groundbreaking US$1.5 billion settlement (AU$2.28 billion) in a class-action copyright lawsuit. The case was initiated in 2024 by novelist Andrea Bartz and non-fiction writers Charles Graeber and Kirk Wallace Johnson.

If the settlement is approved by the presiding judge, the company will pay authors about US$3,000 for each of the estimated 500,000 books included in the agreement. It will destroy illegally downloaded books and refrain from using pirated books to train chatbots in the future.

This is the largest copyright settlement in US history, establishing a crucial legal precedent for the evolving relationship between AI companies and content creators.

It will have implications for numerous other copyright cases currently underway against AI companies OpenAI, Microsoft, Google, and most recently Apple. In June, Meta prevailed in a copyright case brought against it, though the ruling left open the possibility of other lawsuits.

The settlement follows a landmark US ruling on AI development and copyright law, issued in June 2025, that separated legal AI training from illegal acquisition of content. Anthropic allegedly pirated over seven million books from two online “shadow libraries” in June 2021 and July 2022.

The plaintiffs and Anthropic are expected to finalise a list of works to be compensated by September 15.

Cautious optimism

In Australia, the response to news of a potential settlement has been cautiously optimistic. Stuart Glover, head of policy at the Australian Publishers Association told me:

We welcome these court-enforced steps towards accountability, but this settlement shows why AI companies must respect copyright and pay creators – not just see what they can get away with.

And for the sake of Australian authors and publishers whose works have been unlawfully scraped without compensation under this action, it’s a clear call for the Australian government to maintain copyright and mandate that AI companies pay for what they use.

Lucy Hayward, CEO of the Australian Society of Authors, told me:

While all of the details are yet to be revealed, this settlement could represent a very welcome acknowledgement that AI companies cannot just steal authors’ and artists’ work to build their large language models.

However, in the Anthropic case, authors will be only compensated if their publishers have registered their work with the US copyright office within a certain timeframe. Hayward expressed concern about this, as the seven million works that are alleged to have been pirated were written by authors from around the world and “we suspect many international authors may miss out on settlement money.”

She has called on Australian the government to introduce new laws requiring tech companies to “pay ongoing compensation to creators where Australian books have been used to train models offshore”.

Legal risks

In June, US judge William Alsup ruled that using books to train AI was not a violation of US copyright law. But he ruled Anthropic would still have to stand trial over its use of pirated copies to build its library of material.

Judge Alsup has since criticised the settlement for its loopholes. He has scheduled another hearing for September 25. “We’ll see if I can hold my nose and approve it,” he said.

If the settlement is not approved, Anthropic risks significantly greater financial repercussions. The trial is scheduled for December. If the company loses the case, US copyright law allows for statutory damages of up to $150,000 per infringed work in cases of wilful copyright infringement.

William Long, a legal analyst at Wolters Kluwer, suggests potential damages in a trial could reach multiple billions of dollars, potentially jeopardising or even bankrupting the company.

Anthropic recently secured new funding worth US$13 billion, bringing its total value to $183 billion. Keith Kupferschmid, president and CEO of the US-based Copyright Alliance, has argued that this is evidence “AI companies can afford to compensate copyright owners for their works without it undermining their ability to continue to innovate and compete”.

For Mary Rasenberger, CEO of the Authors Guild, the historic settlement is “an excellent result for authors, publishers, and rightsholders”. Rasenberger expects “the settlement will lead to more licensing that gives author[s] both compensation and control over the use of their work by AI companies, as should be the case in a functioning free market society.”

A step forward

While this particular settlement may offer little help to Australian writers and publishers whose works are not registered with the US Copyright Office, overall it is at least potentially good news for creators globally. It represents a step towards the establishment of a legitimate licensing scheme.

Australian copyright law does not include a US-style “fair use” exception, which AI companies claim protects their training practices. There have been calls to change the law with major AI players, including Google and Microsoft, lobbying the Australian government for copyright exemptions.

The recent Productivity Commission interim report proposed a text and data mining exception to the Australian Copyright Act, which would allow AI training on copyrighted Australian work. The proposal faced strong opposition from the Australian Society of Authors and the publishing industry.

As Arts Minister Tony Burke stated in August 2025, the government has “no plans, no intention, no appetite to be weakening” our copyright laws.

The Australian publishing industry is not entirely opposed to AI, but significant legal and ethical challenges remain. The Australian Publishers Association has advocated for government policies on AI that prioritise a clear ethical framework, transparency, appropriate incentives and protections for creators, and a balanced policy approach, so that “both AI development and cultural industries can flourish”.

Agata Mrva-Montoya, Senior Lecturer, Department of Media and Communications, University of Sydney

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Young people are under intense scrutiny. They are subject to community, media and policy concerns about everything from technology use to public safety.

But of the more than three million young people in Australia aged between 15 and 24, most are just doing normal things, like school and work, trying to make a life.

Despite this, young people are one of the most disempowered groups in society. Their views are rarely sought, taken seriously or acted on by those with influence and power.

A new report by the national peak body for young people, the Australian Youth Affairs Coalition, hears directly from more than 1,000 young people about their thoughts on Australian society. Many feel unrepresented and excluded – but there’s things that can be done to help.

The report

Unlike other research on social cohesion in Australia, this study focused specifically on young people aged 12–25.

Online questionnaires and focus groups garnered the perspectives of 1,186 young people. While not representative, the sample broadly reflected the diversity of the Australian population including cultural background, identity and experience. This includes young people identifying as Indigenous, LGBTQIA+, living with a disability and “doing it tough”.

Young people were asked about their views on social cohesion. While not generalisable, the report provides new insights into the perspectives of some young Australians.

More fairness and equity

On the whole, young people believe a more cohesive Australia requires recognising and respecting diversity.

As has been shown in research, young people in Australia largely consider multiculturalism to be the norm.

But they recognise this doesn’t mean everyone’s treated equally.

As one young person said:

I think immigrants and refugees get it tough – even though we rely on them a lot in this country. I don’t think they get “the fair go” that everyone talks about in this country […] it’s a bit like we cling on to the idea we’re not as racist as we could be and there’s people worse than us. And it’s like that stops us improving […]

Moreover, other research shows young people identify discrimination, violence and climate change as significant issues that disproportionately affect them – especially those who are Indigenous, migrants and LGBTQIA+.

The report also supports other evidence of the acute sense of inequality and lack of economic opportunity that young people are facing.

Another participant said:

personally, I feel very sad about the gap in intergenerational wealth in Australia, and how it’s just getting worse and worse over the decades.

Expanding democracy

As the report finds, young people’s involvement in Australian democracy should not wait until they are 18. It should not be ad hoc or only for those with cultural and social capital to lead in ways that are recognised by established institutions. A participant shared:

I think [leadership programs involving advisory roles] are only for the select few. As much as there are opportunities to advocate and talk about these issues, they’re not open to everyone […]

Instead, more effort is required to define with young people what participation in democracy should look like.

This means co-designing spaces and mechanisms – with associated institutional accountability – for making these transformations in our political and civic cultures. This could be more deliberative processes and a role for broader networks and collectives of young people.

Practical ways forward

The research offers some practical ways to address the causes of inequality, which undermine social cohesion.

1. Embedding youth impact assessments across all government policy

This novel idea is particularly valuable for addressing growing intergenerational inequality. As identified by the not-for-profit Think Forward, young people’s needs now and into the future are insufficiently considered in relation to policy areas such as taxation, which is highly inequitable.

2. Value and support youth work

Youth workers are the frontline support for young people to learn about themselves and the world around them.

In the United Kingdom, the direct economic value of the youth work sector is estimated to be £5.7 billion (around A$11 billion).

In Australia, research has found that the sector is under-resourced. Professionals are highly committed to the work they do, but they are under severe strain. This has likely gotten worse since the onset of the COVID pandemic.

3. Implement educational policy that promotes equity and improved outcomes

The economic benefits of an education system, from childhood to university, that provides equal opportunities for all young people is backed by evidence.

System changes should include, but not be limited to, funding models. For example, it’s crucial to broaden recognition of learning so students can identify and meet their learning goals no matter where they are born, what their life experience or the capabilities that they have.

Importantly, the costs of education and daily life must not consign young people to poverty.

4. Raise the rate of income support to at least above the poverty line

One in six children live in poverty. This affects their health and learning into their late teens.

If we are to support opportunity and social cohesion, we must ensure all young people – whether they live at home or independently – can afford to rent, eat and pursue their interests, education and work.

A matter of perspective

Research shows the more culturally, economically and politically equal a society, the healthier it is.

While societal “health” and social cohesion are different phenomena, they go hand in hand.

The report argues that to achieve ongoing social cohesion, we must deal with the drivers of inequality – and young people must not be left out of the conversation. They must be allowed to contribute to the terms of the debate and identifying responses to the challenges we face.

Young people know that this is not asking much. In the words of one participant:

I would like adults to view problems from a young person’s perspective.

Philippa Collin, Professor of Political Sociology, Institute for Culture and Society, Western Sydney University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The New South Wales government recently announced the launch of the NSW Fashion Sector Strategy, 2025–28. The strategy, developed in partnership with the Australian Fashion Council, TAFE NSW, University of Technology Sydney and the Powerhouse Museum, promises to “accelerate NSW’s position as a global leader in high-quality, innovative and inclusive fashion”.

This new policy includes A$750,000 in funding to support local designers. It also prioritises smart factories, skills and training, and a fashion hub to incubate emerging talent.

It is a welcome contribution to the local fashion economy. Yet it is also a reminder of the complex challenges facing the industry.

Fashion in Australia

Australia has a global reputation for producing high-quality, sustainable textiles and clothing.

Despite widespread offshoring of manufacturing capabilities since the 1990s, Australian wool and cotton remain in high demand. Local small and medium-sized brands lead the way in sustainable and ethical fashion production.

The sector is also a significant employer of women. The $27 billion fashion industry – encompassing designers, retailers, suppliers and manufactures, among other roles – employs nearly half a million Australians, 77% of whom are women.

But recent years have seen the closure of many pioneering local sustainable fashion brands, including Arnsdorf, A.BCH, Nique and Nobody Denim (bought by Outland Denim). These closures are testimony to the difficult retail landscape in Australia.

Despite consumers committed to ethical fashion, the challenges of producing locally and competing with low-cost fast fashion brands often prove insurmountable.

The industry has been flooded with fast fashion since the 2010s, with the arrival of Zara (in 2011), H&M and Uniqlo (both in 2014). This accelerated with the introduction of ultra-fast fashion brands such as Shein from 2021.

Annually, 220,000 tonnes of clothing ends up in Australian landfills.

Legislating against ultra-fast fashion

To combat the dominance of these low-cost brands, France has established new taxes on the import of ultra-fast fashion and bans on influencer promotions of their products.

The legislation aims to protect the French fashion industry from cheap products saturating the market, and to reduce the number of garments going to landfill. It sends a strong message to producers and consumers about the harmful labour conditions that make ultra-fast fashion viable.

This week, the European Union adopted new rules mandating producer responsibility to cover costs of collecting, sorting and recycling of textiles.

Despite being the largest per capita consumer of fashion items globally, Australian approaches to tackling the issues of fast fashion have been either voluntary or toothless.

Modern slavery in fashion supply chains

The closest Australia currently comes to regulating the fashion industry is at the intersection of fashion and modern slavery.

In 2018, Australia introduced the Modern Slavery Act. The policy requires companies operating in Australia with an annual revenue of more than $100 million to report on the risks of modern slavery in their supply chains.

But Australian fashion brands continue to be implicated in offshore modern slavery practices, largely because there is no requirement to act on risks identified. Furthermore, most fashion brands are not required to report because their revenue falls below the threshold.

A recent report from Oxfam Australia looked at continued labour rights abuses in Bangladesh’s garment industry. The report notes reporting on modern slavery under the act “has become a box-ticking exercise for many brands, with little impact for the people making our clothes”.

The report makes for difficult reading, and reinforces concerns around the lack of penalties for non-compliance.

New initiatives to support local fashion

There are calls for further regulation of the industry. Peak industry body, the Australian Fashion Council, launched Seamless in 2023, designed to make brands responsible for the entire life of their products.

Seamless aims to create a circular clothing industry – in which the fashion lifecycle follows a reduce, reuse, recycle model – by 2030.

Labels participating in the voluntary scheme will have a 4 cent levy for each clothing item sold. This levy will fund programs to incentivise durable design and crucial expansion of used (or unsold) clothing collection, sorting and recycling.

In response to the Productivity Commission’s interim report on unlocking the future of a circular economy, Seamless is calling for regulation of the scheme.

Local brands, such as Citizen Wolf and Madre Natura, are advancing innovative onshore manufacturing technologies and radical circular business models.

It is vital we support small businesses if these sorts of approaches to fashion production are to survive.

What next?

The introduction of the NSW Fashion Sector Strategy is a positive sign of much-needed investment in this industry.

However, Australia has the potential to have one of the most creative and sustainable fashion industries in the world.

To live up to this potential, we need a more consolidated approach.

The industry requires a whole-of-government strategy to strengthen legislation that will protect our industry. This must include stronger penalties to prevent modern slavery in supply chains, new taxes on ultra-fast fashion, and stronger regulation for circular-economy business models.

That would be a real game-changer for our industry.

Harriette Richards, Senior Lecturer, School of Fashion and Textiles, RMIT University; Lisa Lake, Director, Centre of Excellence in Sustainable Fashion + Textiles, University of Technology Sydney, and Natalya Lusty, Professor of Cultural Studies, The University of Melbourne

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Ten years ago, scientists heard the universe rumble for the first time. That first discovery of gravitational waves proved a key prediction from Albert Einstein’s theory of general relativity and began a new era of astronomy.

Now, a new gravitational-wave discovery marks the anniversary of this major breakthrough. Published today in Physical Review Letters, it puts to the test a theory from another giant of science, Stephen Hawking.

What are gravitational waves?

Gravitational waves are “ripples” in the fabric of space-time that travel at the speed of light. They are caused by highly accelerated massive objects, such as colliding black holes or the mergers of massive star remains known as neutron stars.

These ripples propagating through the universe were first directly observed on September 14 2015 by the twin Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO) detectors in the United States.

That first signal, called GW150914, originated from the collision of two black holes, each more than 30 times the mass of the Sun and more than a billion light years away from Earth.

This was the first direct proof of gravitational waves, exactly as predicted by Einstein’s theory of relativity 100 years earlier. The discovery led to the award of the 2017 Nobel Prize in Physics to Rainer Weiss, Barry Barish and Kip Thorne for their pioneering work on the LIGO collaboration.

Hundreds of signals in less than a decade

Since 2015, more than 300 gravitational waves have been observed by LIGO, along with the Italian Virgo and Japanese KAGRA detectors.

Just a few weeks ago, the international LIGO/Virgo/KAGRA collaboration released the latest results from their fourth observing run, more than doubling the number of known gravitational waves.

Now, ten years after the first discovery, an international collaboration including Australian scientists from the Australian Research Council’s Centre of Excellence for Gravitational Wave Discovery (OzGrav), has announced a new gravitational-wave signal, GW250114.

The signal is almost a carbon copy of that very first gravitational wave signal, GW150914.

The black hole collision responsible for GW250114 had very similar physical properties to GW150914. However, due to significant upgrades to the gravitational wave detectors over the past ten years, the new signal is seen much more clearly (almost four times as “loud” as GW150914).

Excitingly, it’s allowed us to put to the test the ideas of another groundbreaking physicist.

Hawking was right, too

More than 50 years ago, physicists Stephen Hawking and Jacob Bekenstein independently formulated a set of laws that describe black holes.

Hawking’s second law of black hole mechanics, also known as Hawking’s area theorem, states that the area of the event horizon of a black hole must always increase. In other words, black holes can’t shrink.

Meanwhile, Bekenstein showed that the area of a black hole is directly related to its entropy, a scientific measure of disorder. The second law of thermodynamics tells us that entropy must always increase: the universe is always getting messier. Since the entropy of a black hole must also increase with time, it tells us that its area must also increase.

How can we test these ideas? Colliding black holes, it turns out, are the perfect tool.

The precision of this recent measurement allowed scientists to perform the most precise test of Hawking’s area theorem to date.

Previous tests using the first detection, GW150914, showed that signal was in good agreement with Hawking’s law, but could not confirm it conclusively.

Black holes are surprisingly simple objects. The horizon area of a black hole depends on its mass and spin, the only parameters necessary to describe an astrophysical black hole. In turn, the masses and spins determine what the gravitational wave looks like.

By separately measuring the masses and spins of the incoming pair of black holes, and comparing these to the mass and spin of the final black hole left over after the collision, scientists were able to compare the areas of the two individual colliding black holes to the area of the final black hole.

The data show excellent agreement with the theoretical prediction that the area should increase, confirming Hawking’s law without a doubt.

Which giant of science will we put to the test next? Future gravitational wave observations will allow us to test more exotic scientific theories, and maybe even probe the nature of the missing components of the universe – dark matter and dark energy.

Simon Stevenson, ARC DECRA Fellow, Swinburne University of Technology

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Primavera is the Museum of Contemporary Art’s annual spring exhibition featuring selected Australian artists under 35. This year, curator Tim Riley Walsh asks what it means for artists to create in a post-industrial age of reproduction.

Walsh foregrounds a material fascination running through the artists’ works.

Many artists integrate metallurgy into their installations, often using machine fabrication. Traps, cages, monuments, pipes, window frames, carpet and boomerangs appear in the show.

These are not inert objects but create spaces that privilege embodied experience. It is a gesture that resonates in an age when the screen is ubiquitous to daily life.

From fabricated monuments to traps

The tension between touch and industrial manufacture is most evident in Vinall Richardson’s corten steel and copper monoliths.

Each block, scaled up from cardboard maquettes, carries the trace of handmade imperfections. Set against the engineered precision of architectural steel, these marks of inaccuracy break with the exactitude of 1960s’ Minimalism and the emphasis on repetitive, mass-produced forms.

Francis Carmody’s two-part installation turns material toward commodification.

A white dog is dissected at the midsection, trapped in three intersecting silver rings. Nearby, amorphous silver forms crusted with salt and electroplated graphite suggest a production line that leads to shiny polished silver vessels.

Between objects and canines, the dogs act as metaphorical stand-ins for us: ensnared by the gleaming lure of commodities and capital.

Mining: labour or leisure

The emphasis on metallurgy and the material of mining’s infrastructure is brought into focus in Emmaline Zanelli’s installation and two-channel video.

Second-hand rat and hamster cages are linked by a labyrinth of plastic tunnels lit with coloured LEDs. Like a nightscape, the cages lead into a film centred on teenagers in Roxby Downs, South Australia, where families service the nearby Olympic Dam mine for copper, gold and uranium.

In the video, teens appear with exotic pets in bedrooms. As a girl dances on one screen, the other cuts to a copper smelter and the camera’s swift, claustrophobic passage through plastic pipes, echoing a miner’s subterranean descent.

Placed at the centre of the exhibition and lined with gaming chairs, the work embeds the materials of mining into the social realms of labour and leisure.

Eerie corporate veneers and the business of art

The final two works move from extraction into the corporate interior.

Alexandra Peters’ installation is an expanded painting that blurs surface, sculpture and architecture. Enamel-coated industrial pipes designed to feed oil, gas or water are coiled with culturally coded shisha tubing that props a false wall over the gallery wall.

Window frames double the building’s own frames. A three-panel, screen-printed work on imitation leather hangs above dead stock grey carpet. The installation feels like the foyer of a shell company.

The effect is deadpan, summoning what cultural theorist Mark Fisher called the eerie – a sense of space emptied of its expected presence.

In Peters’ hands, this eeriness is decentering: materials and veneers leave the human adrift in the architecture of surfaces designed for occupation but hollowed of life.

The staging of corporate life inflects Keemon Williams’ adjacent installation. The work positions the artist’s Aboriginal identity as embedded within the commodities of industry.

Metal boomerangs fabricated offshore are stacked into towers that read as a cityscape or corporate graph.

On the wall, a large vinyl chart divides boom from doom; along with Williams’ portraits between those states – in one he lifts a boomerang like a phone, in another he slumps on a modernist sofa.

At the media preview, Williams quipped he doesn’t know what he’ll do with the boomerangs after the show: stripped of their use-value, they are not designed to be thrown.

Together, Peters and Williams bring the exhibition’s focus on material residues into the present tense. Industrial processes and social relations are reassembled as corporate veneers, graphs and flightless boomerangs.

From here, the show’s broader stakes become clear.

Australia in the post-industrial age

All of the artists in Primavera 2025 were born in the 1990s. While the following decades marked the global rise of internet and screen culture, more locally, this era saw the effects of Australia’s trade liberalisation.

These artists grew up during the collapse of manufacturing, leaving mining extraction and services dominant. This shift echoes in the fabricated forms and thematic concerns of the exhibition.

As Karl Marx observed in Capital, raw materials are not neutral but products of past labour, their extraction and history. That inheritance runs through the materials and objects of the exhibition: the corten steel monoliths, the silver canine traps, the mining tunnels, the oil and water pipes, the corporate foyer, the stacked boomerangs.

Each work gestures to the way materials of industry are embedded within the social and environmental aspects of Australian life.

In the show, artists play with materials as alluring yet toxic, solid yet emptied of use, all bearing the social and political conditions of their making. That reckoning finds its sharpest expression in a line from Zanelli’s video, penned by poet Autumn Royal: “I could croak with copper on my nails”.

To make art in a post-industrial age is not to escape commodities, but to reckon with their afterlife.

Primavera 2025: Young Australian Artists is at the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, Sydney, until March 8 2026.

Sara Oscar, Senior Lecturer, Visual Communication, School of Design, University of Technology Sydney

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Late last week, citing anonymous sources, the Australian Financial Review reported the federal government was considering delaying and possibly overhauling its plan to impose a higher tax on superannuation balances above $3 million.

The federal government has not confirmed such a pause, but sources reportedly indicated officials were re-examining the policy amid mounting criticism.

There’s still the opportunity for a compromise. Recent polling suggests more than half of Australians support the government’s proposed changes to the way large super balances are taxed. Yet, many groups remain vocally opposed to the way this policy has been put together, for various reasons.

So, are the government’s plans for reform really in trouble – and what might come next?

How did we get here?

In 2023, the Albanese government announced an additional 15% tax on earnings from super balances above $3 million. This would lift the effective rate from 15% to 30% on the wealthiest accounts.

The government estimated this change would affect a very small group: fewer than 0.5% of super members, or about 80,000 people.

The change was framed as a matter of fairness – superannuation was designed to help Australians save for retirement, not to provide unlimited tax shelter for the very wealthy.

But controversy quickly flared over one unusual policy design choice: taxing unrealised capital gains. This would mean a super member could face a tax bill when the value of their fund’s investments rose — even without selling assets or receiving cash.

It’s a bit like being taxed on the rising value of your house each year, even if you were never going to sell it. Critics argue this breaks with a core principle of Australia’s tax system: gains are normally taxed only when they’re realised.

Behind the backlash

Three major concerns dominate the debate around Labor’s proposed changes.

The first relates to “liquidity” – the ready cash someone can actually use, not just wealth tied up in assets like property or super. Critics say taxing “paper gains” could leave members scrambling for funds to pay their tax bill.

For example, a farmer with valuable land in their super fund might face a large tax bill on rising land values, even if they had no cash from a sale to pay it.

The second is the complexity of compliance. Super funds would need to revalue diverse investments every year, from listed shares to property and private equity. This would add significant cost and compliance burdens for funds and for the Australian Taxation Office.

The third concern relates to “bracket creep”. The $3 million threshold central to this policy is not indexed.

As wages and prices rise over time, more Australians will be caught by the policy, even if their relative wealth hasn’t grown. It’s like a coffee that may have cost $3.50 a decade ago now costing $5.50. The coffee hasn’t changed, only the price tag.

In the same way, someone with a $3 million super balance in 20 years won’t be as wealthy as that figure implies today. Together, these concerns have driven industry pushback, fuelled media backlash, and rattled the government.

Alternative options

Indexing the $3 million threshold to inflation or wages would be one easy way to stop “bracket creep” and restore fairness over time. But indexation doesn’t solve what is arguably this policy’s biggest flaw: taxing gains before they are realised.

If the government does decide to pause and redesign its planned reforms, several alternatives are on the table:

Only taxing ‘realised gains’

Super members would pay the extra tax only when assets are sold and profits “crystallised”. This removes liquidity pressures, but may reduce short-term revenue and encourage investors to delay selling — the so-called “lock-in effect.”

Using ‘deeming rates’

The government could assume a notional rate of return called a “deeming rate” on super balances above $3 million and apply the extra tax to that. Deeming rates are fixed percentages the government uses in certain situations to calculate the assumed income from a person’s financial assets, regardless of what those assets actually earn.

This approach, already used for pension means testing, is simple and predictable. But choosing the right rate is tricky: set it too high and savers are overtaxed; set it too low and the government loses revenue.

Putting hard caps on super balances

Another option would be to set a maximum balance, say $3 million or perhaps $5 million, that could remain in the concessional system. Anything above this amount would need to be withdrawn and invested elsewhere.

This is straightforward in theory but politically sensitive: no government likes telling people they’ve saved “too much” and now have to pull money out of their preferred account.

The bigger picture

This debate is about more than tax mechanics. At stake is the very purpose of superannuation. The superannuation system was designed to provide retirement income, not to serve as a tax-free inheritance vehicle or wealth shelter. Extremely large balances stretch that purpose and risk undermining public trust.

It also raises issues of generational fairness. Younger Australians – already struggling with housing and unlikely to accumulate multimillion-dollar super balances – are effectively subsidising tax breaks for a wealthy few.

Politically, the government also faces a credibility challenge: constant tinkering erodes confidence, but poorly designed reforms do the same.

A combination or hybrid model of the options discussed here could be explored to balance simplicity, fairness and revenue needs. For example, indexing the threshold and also using a deeming rate to calculate returns.

The principle is clear: very large balances should not enjoy the same concessions as ordinary retirement savings. The challenge is finding a design that is workable as well as fair.

Natalie Peng, Lecturer in Accounting, The University of Queensland

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

You may have lived in Australia for most of your adult life, speaking English every day. But if you acquired the language later in life and then develop dementia – a brain condition that affects thinking, memory and everyday function – you may lose fluency and find the language you spoke as a child takes over again.

For many migrants, this is the confronting reality. Language loss affects not only how they communicate with doctors and carers, but also how they connect with family, friends and the world around them.

More than one in four (28%) people living with dementia in Australia is from a culturally and linguistically diverse background.

This means language changes in dementia aren’t a niche issue – they affect thousands of families. It is estimated that 411,100 Australians were living with dementia in 2023.

How does dementia affect language?

Dementia can cause changes to speech and language, and these are often early symptoms. People may repeat themselves, have trouble finding the right word, switch topics unexpectedly or use words in unusual ways.

But these language changes can affect bi- or multilingual people differently.

Dementia usually affects the parts of the brain that store more recently acquired skills, including languages.

Languages learned during childhood are more deeply embedded in long-term memory than recently acquired skills.

This means someone who moved to Australia in their 20s and then learned English may lose their ability to speak it when they develop dementia later in life. But they may retain the ability to communicate in a first language – such as Italian, Arabic, Greek or Vietnamese – and revert to using only this.

Losing a second language means more than losing a skill. Migrants with dementia may be losing part of the life they’ve built, returning to a version of themselves from decades ago, which family and carers might not recognise.

The language gap in dementia care

While interpreters are widely available in aged care and to assist people with dementia, most lack specialised training.

Without this knowledge of dementia-specific communication, even skilled interpreters can struggle to communicate tone and meaning and recognise dementia symptoms.

Trained health interpreters are scarce outside major cities, and in regional areas family members are often heavily relied on.

But interpreting for a loved one with dementia is no easy task. Research shows family carers from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds face added stress thanks to language and cultural barriers. Many provide unpaid care and feel isolated.

For instance, a daughter caring for her mother with dementia might struggle to understand medical terms, while at the same time dealing with her own grief and exhaustion.

Some elderly people may also not want to discuss personal health details in front of their children or other relatives.

Burnout is a huge issue for family members and can sometimes lead to errors in care.

So, what works?

Evidence shows dementia-aware language services and culturally responsive care can help reduce stress for carers and improve quality of life for people living with dementia.

In a 2023 clinical trial, Australian researchers co-designed and evaluated specialist online training for interpreters. These included modules on dementia, aged care and cross-cultural communication.

The study found the training significantly improved the quality of interpreters’ communication during cognitive assessments of people with dementia, which are used to work out what supports someone might need.

This training has since been made available for free to all interpreters in Australia. At least 13% of the active interpreter workforce has completed it so far.

Dementia Support Australia also provides language support for people with dementia and their carers, arranging interpreters, translated materials, and Auslan services when needed.

There are also various initiatives in different states and territories, such as the “language buddies” program in Victoria which help people with dementia reconnect with community.

But we still need to do more

Despite these positive developments, there is still more to do to ensure diagnosis and support for people with dementia are not delayed due to cultural and language barriers.

We need to continue expanding supports, including:

1. Specialist dementia training for interpreters: to handle repetitive speech, non-linear conversation and culturally specific expressions.

2. Language and dementia awareness training for health workers: to understand why language loss happens and how to adapt care to address cognitive decline and also consider overall wellbeing.

3. Better matching of interpreters: including age, dialect and cultural familiarity, especially in dementia-related contexts.

4. Expanding the bilingual workforce: hiring more health-care workers who share the languages and cultures of local communities, particularly in rural, regional and remote areas.

5. Culturally tailored dementia resources: booklets, videos, and support groups in multiple languages, co-designed with community members.

Fahad Hanna, Associate Professor in Public Health, Torrens University Australia

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

A new test could help to diagnose memory issues associated with Alzheimer’s disease in as little as three minutes. According to recently published findings the test, called the Fastball EEG test, may one day help doctors flag people who need further checks for Alzheimer’s disease without the need for unnecessary waits or time-consuming procedures.

Alzheimer’s disease affects millions of people worldwide. It’s a progressive condition, in which brain cells are slowly damaged and die – leading to memory loss, confusion and difficulties with thinking and daily tasks.

The disease process begins long before symptoms manifest. Proteins called amyloid and tau gradually build up in the brain, forming plaques and tangles that interfere with communication between nerve cells. By the time memory problems are significant enough for diagnosis, much of the damage has already been done.

It’s important to note that the signs of Alzheimer’s disease and symptoms don’t develop similarly in all patients. This means the amount of amyloid plaques and tau tangles a person has in their brain doesn’t always match the severity of the disease.

In addition, the amount of plaques and tangles can only be estimated via imaging or blood tests. These factors make Alzheimer’s disease difficult to diagnose and predict how it will progress. This is why researchers are keen to develop tests that can spot signs of the disease earlier.

Traditionally, diagnosis has relied on cognitive screening tests, where a doctor asks a patient to remember words, copy drawings or complete problem-solving tasks. These tools are effective, but take time and require trained staff. They may also be stressful for the patients and can be influenced by factors such as a person’s education level, their language skills or test-related performance anxiety.

More advanced diagnostic options, including brain scans and laboratory analysis of cerebrospinal fluid (a fluid which protects the brain and spinal cord), can indicate the presence of Alzheimer’s disease in the brain. But these tests are expensive and invasive.

But the Fastball EEG test uses a different approach.

Instead of asking patients to actively recall or solve problems, it measures how the brain responds to images flashed on a screen. Participants first see a set of eight pictures, which they’re asked to name but not memorise.

Then, during the test, hundreds of images are shown in quick succession – around three per second. Every fifth image is one of the eight previously shown. The EEG headset records the brain’s electrical activity, picking up tiny signals that reveal whether the brain recognises these familiar images.

In healthy people, the recognition response is clear. But in people with mild cognitive impairment (problems with thinking, memory or problem-solving which often precedes Alzheimer’s disease) and especially those with memory issues, the response is weaker.

To understand the test’s suitability, researchers recruited 106 participants to their study. This included 54 healthy adults and 52 people with mild cognitive impairment (MCI). Among the latter group, some had memory-specific problems (amnestic MCI), while others had difficulties unrelated to memory – such as problems with attention (non-amnestic MCI).

The researchers found that the Fastball test was sensitive enough to distinguish between these groups. Those with amnestic MCI showed significantly reduced brain responses to the familiar images compared to healthy adults and those with non-amnestic MCI. In other words, the test quickly identified the kind of memory impairment most closely linked to early Alzheimer’s.

They then repeated the test a year later. Some of the participants who’d only had mild cognitive impairment in the first test had progressed to either Alzheimer’s disease dementia or another type of dementia, called vascular dementia, which manifests in symptoms similar to Alzheimer’s.

The researchers also asked the participants who developed dementia to perform the standard cognitive tests currently used to diagnose Alzheimer’s. These participants showed no or little difference in this test, which means the test wasn’t sensitive enough to detect the transition from mild cognitive impairment to dementia. But with the Fastball test, the participants performed marginally worse than they had previously.

However, of the 42 participants with mild cognitive impairment who repeated the Fastball test a year later, only eight had transitioned to dementia. So, although the results are very promising in illustrating the test’s accuracy, they should be interpreted with caution as they’re based on a small number of people.

The future of diagnosis

Crucially, the test is fast – lasting only three minutes. It also doesn’t rely on the participant’s effort, mood or test-taking ability, which can influence cognitive test results. It can also be done at home or in a GP’s office, which might reduce anxiety for patients and make it easier to reach a larger group of people.

However, the study did not include other conditions where memory impairment is also present – such as depression or thyroid problems – so it cannot be used as a standalone diagnostic tool for Alzheimer’s disease. Future studies in more diverse populations which take these other conditions into account will be needed to better understand the test’s strengths, limitations and potential.

Other tests, which are currently in development, may be better for diagnosing Alzheimer’s disease specifically. For example, blood tests could transform Alzheimer’s diagnosis once they’re more widely rolled out.

These measure proteins linked to Alzheimer’s and can give a snapshot of disease processes happening in the brain. Some tests currently being studied would only require a finger-prick of blood. If they prove to be accurate, this could mean patients could do these tests at home and mail them in for analysis.

Tools such as the Fastball test and blood tests could help shift the focus of Alzheimer’s care from late diagnosis to early intervention. By identifying people at risk of the disease years earlier, doctors could recommend lifestyle changes, monitor patients more closely or provide them with appropriate therapies earlier, while they can still make the most difference.

Eleftheria Kodosaki, Research Fellow in Neuroimmunology, UCL

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Entire neighbourhoods in Gaza lie in ruins. Hundreds of thousands are crammed into tents, struggling for food, water and power. Despite this devastation, a leaked 38-page document from Donald Trump’s administration – the Gaza Reconstitution, Economic Acceleration and Transformation (Great) Trust – proposes to “fundamentally transform Gaza” folding it into the India–Middle East–Europe Economic Corridor (Imec).

While framed as a reconstruction plan, it outlines “massive US gains,” Imec’s acceleration, and consolidation of an “Abrahamic regional architecture” – a term that refers back to the 2020 Abraham Accords, US-brokered agreements that normalised relations between Israel, the UAE and Bahrain.

In many respects, the document echoes the “Gaza 2035” plan promoted by Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu. This was the 2024 proposal that envisioned Gaza as a sanitised logistics hub linked to Saudi Arabia’s Neom mega-project and stripped of meaningful Palestinian presence.

As my co-authors and I trace in a recent book Resisting Erasure: Capital, Imperialism and Race in Palestine, this continues a pattern of policies that deny Palestinians political agency and reduce Gaza to an investment opportunity.

Imec was launched at the 2023 G20 summit in New Delhi. Signed by the US, EU, India, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, it was billed as a transformative infrastructure project. It comprised a chain of railways, ports, pipelines and digital cables linking South Asia to Europe via the Arabian Peninsula.

Israel was not formally a signatory, but its role was implicit. The corridor runs from Indian ports to the UAE, overland through Saudi Arabia and Jordan to the Haifa Port in Israel, then across the Mediterranean to Greece and Europe.

Like many such mega-projects, Imec is marketed in the language of efficiency – faster trade times, lower costs, new energy and data corridors. But its deeper significance is political. For Washington it serves as a counterweight to China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) while binding India into a US-led system. Europe views it as a hedge against the Suez Canal and Russian pipelines.

The Gulf monarchies see a chance to position themselves as the region’s main centre for trade and transport. Israel promotes Haifa as a gateway for Euro-Asian trade. India, meanwhile, gains quicker access to Europe while tightening its ties with both Washington and the Gulf.

Gaza as obstacle and gateway

The plan casts Gaza both as an Iranian outpost undermining Imec and as a historic crossroads of trade routes linking Egypt, Arabia, India and Europe.

By invoking Gaza’s history as a trading route, the plan presents the territory as a natural logistics gateway poised to “thrive once again” at the centre of a “pro-American regional order”. The blueprint proposes extending Gaza’s port from Egypt’s al-Arish, integrating its industries into regional supply chains, and reorganising its land into “planned cities” and digital economies.

What is being imagined is not recovery for its residents, but the conversion of Gaza into a logistics centre serving Imec.

Perhaps the most radical element of the Great Trust is its model of direct trusteeship. The plan envisions a US-led custodianship, beginning with a bilateral US–Israel agreement and eventually expanding into a multilateral trust. This body would govern Gaza, oversee security, manage aid and control redevelopment. After a “Palestinian polity” is established, the trust would still retain powers through a Compact of Free Association.

Even the most ill-fated US occupation plans in Iraq and Afghanistan did not so openly imagine territory as a corporatised trusteeship for global capital.

‘Voluntary’ relocation

Another striking feature of the plan is its provision for “voluntary relocation.” Palestinians who leave their homes in Gaza would receive relocation packages, rent subsidies and food stipends. The document assumes a quarter of the population will depart permanently, with financial models showing how the scheme becomes more profitable the more people leave.

In reality, the notion of voluntary departure under siege and famine is not voluntary at all. Israel’s blockade has produced what UN officials describe as engineered mass starvation. To frame out-migration as a choice is to sanction ethnic cleansing.

The plan also shows how the language of the Abraham Accords has been grafted onto Gaza’s imagined future. Nearly every element is dressed in “Abrahamic” branding: an Abraham gateway logistics hub in Rafah, an Abrahamic infrastructure corridor of railways, even new highways renamed after Saudi and Emirati leaders.

Techno-futurist gloss is added through smart manufacturing zones, AI-regulated data centres, luxury resorts and new digital-ID cities, planned “smart cities” where daily life, from housing and healthcare to commerce and employment, would be mediated through ID-based digital systems.

Saudi Arabia and the fig leaf of Palestinian statehood

A central ambition of the Great Trust is to channel Gulf capital into Gaza’s redevelopment under its trusteeship. The plan forecasts US$70–100 billion (£50-£74 billion) in public investment and another $35–65 billion from private investors, with public–private partnerships financing ports, rail, hospitals and data centres.

Saudi Arabia, though not formally part of the Abraham accords, signalled its acceptance of the overall framework when it backed Imec. For Washington, Gaza’s reconstruction is imagined as the final step in persuading Riyadh to make normalisation official – a prize that would anchor the “Abrahamic order”.

The Trump plan is designed to smooth this path, offering Saudi Arabia a custodial role in Gaza’s redevelopment and lucrative stakes in Imec. To make the deal more palatable, it even floats the idea of a Palestinian “polity” – a limited governance entity under trusteeship.

While such an arrangement may be billed as a step towards Palestinian statehood recognition by Saudi Arabia, this is precisely why any future gestures of recognition must be treated with caution. The real question is what, exactly, is being recognised, and in whose interest.

The Great Trust is, at its core, an investment prospectus. The document values Gaza today at “practically $0” – but projects it could be worth $324 billion within a decade.

Gaza is described less as a society than as a distressed asset to be flipped. This is disaster capitalism at its sharpest. It is devastation reframed as the precondition for speculative profit.

Yet visions of free-trade zones and futuristic cities quickly collide with reality. Palestinians have consistently rejected such schemes. What this leaked document makes clear however, is that Gaza’s future is being framed within this broader US effort to reshape the region.

Rafeef Ziadah, Senior Lecturer in Politics and Public Policy (Emerging Economies), King's College London

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The link between diabetes and dementia is becoming increasingly clear. New research shows how blood sugar problems affect brain health and vice versa. Here are ten evidence-based insights into how the two conditions are related.

1. Diabetes raises the risk of dementia

People with diabetes are about 60% more likely to develop dementia than those without, and frequent episodes of low blood sugar are linked to a 50% higher chance of cognitive decline.

2. Insulin resistance affects the brain too

Insulin resistance – the major cause of type 2 diabetes – happens when cells stop responding properly to insulin. This means that too much sugar, in the form of glucose, is left in the blood, leading to complications.

It usually affects the liver and muscles, but it also affects the brain. In Alzheimer’s, this resistance may make it harder for brain cells to use glucose for energy, contributing to cognitive decline.

3. A brain sugar shortage in dementia

The brain is only 2% of our body weight, but uses about 20% of the body’s energy. In dementia, brain cells appear to lose the ability to use glucose properly.

This mix of poor use of glucose and insulin resistance is sometimes unofficially called type 3 diabetes.

4. Alzheimer’s can raise diabetes risk

People with Alzheimer’s often have higher fasting blood glucose, even if they don’t have diabetes. This is a form of pre-diabetes. Animal studies also show that Alzheimer’s-like changes in the brain raise blood glucose levels.

Also, the highest genetic risk factor for Alzheimer’s, the APOE4 genetic variant, reduces insulin sensitivity by trapping the insulin receptor inside the cell, where it cannot be switched on properly.

5. Blood vessel damage links both conditions

Diabetes damages blood vessels, causing complications in the eyes, kidneys and heart. The brain is also at risk. High or varying blood glucose levels can injure vessels in the brain, reducing blood flow and oxygen delivery.

Diabetes can also weaken the brain’s protective barrier, letting harmful substances in. This leads to inflammation. Reduced blood flow and brain inflammation are strongly linked to dementia.

6. Memantine: a dementia drug born from diabetes research

Memantine, used to treat moderate to severe Alzheimer’s symptoms, was originally developed as a diabetes medication. It didn’t succeed in controlling blood glucose, but researchers later discovered its benefits for brain function. This story shows how diabetes research may hold clues for treating brain disorders.

7. Metformin might protect the brain

Metformin, the most widely used diabetes drug, does more than just lower blood glucose. It gets in to the brain and may lower brain inflammation.

Some studies suggest that people with diabetes who take metformin are less likely to develop dementia, and those who stop taking it may see their risk increase again.

Trials are testing its effects in people without diabetes.

8. Weight-loss injections may reduce plaque buildup

GLP-1 receptors agonist drugs, such as semaglutide (Ozempic, Wegovy), lower blood glucose and support weight loss. Records show that people with diabetes on these drugs have a lower dementia risk. Comparing GLP1 drugs to metformin, studies have found that they were even more effective than metformin at reducing dementia risk.

Two major trials, Evoke and Evoke Plus, are testing oral semaglutide in people with mild cognitive impairment or early mild Alzheimer’s.

9. Insulin therapy might help the brain

Since insulin resistance in the brain is a problem, researchers have tested insulin sprays given through the nose. This method delivers insulin straight to the brain while reducing effects on blood sugar.

Small studies suggest these sprays may help memory or reduce brain shrinkage, but delivery methods remain a challenge. Sprays vary in how much insulin reaches the brain, and long-term safety has not yet been proven.

10. SGLT2 inhibitors may lower dementia risk

New evidence suggests that compared to GLP-1 receptor agonists, SGLT2 inhibitors, (a type of diabetes drug) are superior at reducing dementia risk, including Alzheimer’s and vascular dementia, in people with type 2 diabetes. These tablets lower blood sugar by increasing sugar removal in urine. This study builds on early evidence suggesting they lower dementia risk by reducing inflammation in the brain.

This growing body of evidence suggests that managing diabetes protects more than the heart and kidneys, it also helps preserve brain function.

Questions remain whether diabetes drugs only reduce the diabetes-associated dementia risk or whether these drugs could also reduce risk in people without diabetes.

However, diabetes research has been very successful in creating at least 13 different classes of drugs, multiple combination therapies, giving rise to at least 50 different medicines. These reduce blood sugar, improve insulin sensitivity and reduce inflammation. A “side-effect” may be better preservation of brain health during ageing.

Craig Beall, Associate Professor in Experimental Diabetes, University of Exeter and Natasha MacDonald, PhD Candidate, Biochemistry, University of Exeter

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Many of us have heard the saying, “it takes a village to raise a child”. The idea that families need communities of support to raise their children has long resonated.

New research explores how this applies to modern Australian families and communities. We looked at the villages helping raise children and young people and importantly, who has one and who doesn’t.

We found while many benefit from these support networks, other families go without, particularly those who could most do with the help.

Our research

The report is a collaboration between Uniting NSW.ACT and the University of New South Wales’ Social Policy Research Centre.

It expands on previous work that showed Australian families are increasingly diverse, including multi-generational, sole-parent, blended families and foster families.

This work goes beyond the household to look at extended family, friends, neighbours and communities who are also involved in raising children.

Our analysis of 2022 and 2023 Household Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) data and qualitative interviews with 28 families reveals that Australian villages provide wide-ranging support networks. They are highly dependable and care for one another.

Grandparents, extended family and friends are at the heart of modern Australian villages. About 42% of grandparents actively help care for their grandchildren, such as with child-minding and transport.

Friends are relied on too, often for emotional support through the highs and lows of parenting, with close to three quarters of all families (74%) connecting regularly.

Sole-parent families are most likely to make regular time to see friends.

Families told us a good mix of support is most helpful. While practical help and emotional support matter, parents and carers also value having other trusted adults in their children’s lives who provide cultural connections.

Extended family and community groups play a key role here in sharing language, traditions and stories. As one mother said:

my mum is like […] the big tree that we all sit under. She gives us that shade […] so, when I mean shade, is that she gives us the wisdom […] she tells us a lot of stories from her childhood […] the struggles, just everything that she’s been through. So, my kids listen to that as well.

When it comes to advice on raising children, extended family and friends who have relevant experience offer valuable advice, along with trusted professionals, such as early educators.

Importantly, families with more community connection are less likely to report that they find parenting difficult or exhausting. Only 34% of those with weekly contact with family and friends say that taking care of their children is much more work than pleasure, compared to 43% of those with only monthly contact.

Not everyone has a village

Not everyone can easily build strong social connections outside the family unit. Insecure housing, employment status or additional care responsibilities can negatively affect this.

Families who rent often feel less connected to their local community, with almost two in three (64%) reporting low participation in local social and community events.

Only 40% of families living with someone with a limiting health condition see friends or extended family weekly, compared to almost 50% of families without any care responsibilities.

Of families facing financial stress (they cannot pay for food, heating, utilities or the like), 65% say they seldom take part in community activities, compared to 59% of families with little or no stress.

These families also spend less time with relatives and friends.

Whether someone has a job or not can affect how connected they feel to their community. Our analysis shows 66% of families with no employment were less involved in community activities, and many felt less satisfied with their sense of belonging.

There are differences between family types, too, with 44% of couple-parent families maintaining medium to high levels of community connections. This is more than the 38% of foster and other kin families, 37% of families living with multiple generations, 34% of sole parent families and 31% of step-blended families.

These less connected families are also more likely to have care responsibilities and to experience financial stress.

Giving back

Families value giving back just as much as receiving help from others. They describe their village as a reciprocal network: a dynamic, participatory ecosystem of care.

Often this means supporting ageing parents with doctors’ appointments, technology or just company.

They also help friends, taking turns transporting or minding children, and many reach out to help others in the community. Helping others matters, as one mother said:

I’m not the one that’s just a taker. I always give as well […] I find that I like helping more.

Families born overseas, particularly those from non-English speaking backgrounds, are more likely to volunteer or participate in local groups.

These families also have higher levels of community participation, with 44% reporting moderate participation and 37% regularly attending places of worship.

More support for all

Our research has implications for services supporting families that have few people they can rely on. Families using services want to give something back, too.

Services can respond by attending to the contributions people are able to make, as well as addressing their needs.

But to do this, services must be funded and supported to adopt models which build the connections between families.

Then, instead of support services focusing solely on filling a gap for families, they would enable peer relationships to grow, and provide opportunities for families to share their knowledge and expertise, building more villages for everyone.

Megan Blaxland, Senior Research Fellow, Social Policy Research Centre, UNSW Sydney; Yuchen Xie, Postdoctoral fellow, Social Policy Research Centre, UNSW Sydney, and Yuvisthi Naidoo, Senior Research Fellow, Social Policy Research Centre, UNSW Sydney

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The Australian government announced last week there’s a new vaccine for pneumococcal disease on the National Immunisation Program for all children.

This vaccine replaces previously listed pneumococcal vaccines, having been updated to offer better protection against the disease.

So what is pneumococcal disease? And what is this new vaccine?

From meningitis to ear infections

Pneumococcal disease encompasses a range of infections caused by the common bacterium Streptococcus pneumoniae, also known as pneumococcus.

Anyone can get pneumococcal disease. However, it’s more common in young children, older people, those with weakened immune systems and certain medical conditions.

The most severe forms of pneumococcal disease are meningitis (inflammation around the brain) and bacteraemia (a bloodstream infection). These are often referred to as invasive pneumococcal disease and can be life-threatening.

Pneumococcus is also responsible for most hospitalisations for bacterial pneumonia, a particular problem in young children and older adults. Another common condition pneumococcus causes in children is middle ear infections (otitis media).

There are more than 100 different strains (called serotypes) of pneumococcus. Some strains frequently cause disease in humans, while others rarely do.

In healthy people, particularly preschool children, pneumococcus can be found in the back of the nose. Often it’s just sitting there, without causing illness – this is known as colonisation. Individuals who are colonised with pneumococcus, particularly young children, spread the bacteria, usually through respiratory droplets.

Invasive pneumococcal disease can occur when a person acquires a new strain and the bacteria travels from the nose to a part of the body where it’s not normally found.

In Australia, health professionals and laboratories must notify state health departments when they encounter cases of invasive pneumococcal disease, and strain data is collected. There were about 2,400 cases reported in 2024, with one-fifth in children.

Pneumococcal vaccines

Vaccines are designed to simulate the natural immune response following infection, ensuring the recipient’s immune system can promptly respond when exposed.

The outer coating of the pneumococcus, called its polysaccharide capsule, is key to our body’s immune response to the bacteria. So pneumococcal vaccines induce immunity against the selected strains’ polysaccharide capsules.

Pneumococcal vaccines have been around for more than 100 years, and have changed and advanced many times.

Current pneumococcal vaccines are multivalent, meaning they protect against multiple strains. Those strains with the greatest tendency to cause disease are chosen to be included.

One type of pneumococcal vaccine is a pneumococcal polysaccharide vaccine, or PPV. A vaccine containing polysaccharide from 23 different strains (23-valent or 23vPPV) has been recommended to certain Australian children at higher risk from pneumococcal until now.

But while this vaccine provides protection against many strains, these PPVs provide only short-term protection.

Newer vaccines

Pneumococcal conjugate vaccines (PCVs) were developed more recently to achieve a stronger immune response. In PCVs, the polysaccharide is linked to a carrier protein, which stimulates other components of the immune system, providing better and longer-lasting protection.

The first PCV to be used in childhood vaccination programs across many countries contained seven strains (7vPCV). This vaccine was first given to all Australian children through the National Immunisation Program in 2005.

Over the years new PCVs were developed, incorporating more strains. In 2011, 13vPCV replaced 7vPCV in Australia’s pneumococcal vaccination program.

Real-world data showed these PCVs were around 90% effective at preventing invasive pneumococcal disease from the targeted strains in Australian children.

But like many bacteria and viruses, pneumococcus continues to evolve. Two new PCVs (15vPCV and 20vPCV) were licensed for use in Australia in recent years.

Based on advice from the Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation, the PCV offered to children on the National Immunisation Program was switched on September 1 from 13vPCV to 20vPCV.

Efficacy and safety

In multiple clinical trials, 20vPCV produced comparable immune responses against the 13 strains it has in common with 13vPCV. It also elicited good immune responses against all seven extra strains.

With its additional strains, 20vPCV is expected to prevent 25–30% more cases of invasive pneumococcal disease in children compared to 13vPCV. It will also prevent more cases of less severe pneumococcal infections such as pneumonia and otitis media in children.

The hidden power of PCVs is they prevent disease in the wider population beyond vaccinated children by reducing pneumococcal colonisation and thereby transmission. These indirect benefits should result in fewer cases of pneumococcal disease overall, including in unvaccinated children and adults.

Trials also showed the 20vPCV has a similarly good safety profile to 13vPCV, which has been used for more than 15 years with no serious concerns.

The World Health Organization recommends PCVs should be part of all routine childhood immunisation programs. This is now the case in 160 countries.

When do children get this vaccine?

The dosing schedule for pneumococcal vaccines has been modified over time in Australia to optimise protection.

Most recently, three doses of 13vPCV were recommended for all children at two, four and 12 months old. An extra dose was given at six months to those at increased risk of pneumococcal disease including Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children in certain states and territories, and children with underlying medical risk factors.

In addition to four doses of 13vPCV, up to two doses of the older 23vPPV vaccine were given to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children in certain jurisdictions and children with underlying medical risk conditions to extend protection to more strains.

With the transition to 20vPCV, 13vPCV will be replaced and 23vPPV is no longer required in children, as 20vPCV sufficiently covers all strains currently causing disease.

Three 20vPCV doses are recommended for all infants (at two, four and 12 months). An extra dose at six months is recommended for all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children nationally (not just those in selected jurisdictions) and children with specified medical risk conditions.

Children who have been partially vaccinated so far (that is, have received one or two doses of 13vPVC) can complete their routine schedule with 20vPCV without extra doses.

These changes broaden the protection offered and simplify pneumococcal vaccine recommendations. While nine in ten children receive three or more doses of pneumococcal vaccine, it’s hoped these changes will lead to even better compliance from both parents and providers, and fewer cases of pneumococcal disease.

Christopher Blyth, Paediatrician, Infectious Diseases Physician and Clinical Microbiologist, The Kids Research Institute Australia, The University of Western Australia and Sanjay Jayasinghe, Senior Research Fellow, National Centre for Immunisation Research and Surveillance; Conjoint Senior Lecturer, Faculty of Medicine, University of Sydney; NHMRC Emerging Leadership Fellow, University of Sydney

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Australia is now meeting the World Health Organization’s (WHO) guidelines on sugar, which recommend keeping sugar below 10% of daily energy intake.

New data published by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) shows there is less sugar in our diet from food and drinks than three decades ago.

In 1995, sugar – either added to foods or drinks by manufacturers, or found naturally in honey and fruit juices – made up about 12.5% of the energy (or kilojoules) we ate each day. This dropped to 10.9% in 2011–12 and then to 8.2% in 2023, even though our energy intake from all food and drink was down by less than 5%.

Importantly, we are now drinking far fewer sugary drinks than we were in the past. This includes drinks sweetened with sugar or artificial sweeteners, or both, such as soft drinks, cordials, fruit juices and energy drinks.

In 2011–12, around 42% of us had at least one of these drinks daily. By 2023, this fell to under 29%.

In 1995, almost three in four children (72%) drank a sugary drink every day. By 2023, this had dropped to just one in four (25%).

So, what’s behind this trend? And will it continue? Let’s take a look at the data.

Why the fuss about sugar?

We have known for a long time that having a lot of sugar is not ideal for our health. Sugary drinks and foods are considered discretionary or “sometimes” foods, because they provide little nutritional benefit while contributing excess energy or “empty calories” to our diet.

Having a lot of sugar in our diet can increase our risk of obesity, type 2 diabetes and tooth decay. Sweetened drinks don’t fill us up like regular meals, making it easy to underestimate the energy being consumed.

Most soft drinks contain about 40 grams (ten teaspoons) of sugar per serve, close to the daily recommended limit. Energy drinks may contain up to double that amount, while sports drinks may contain slightly less.

Three decades of data

The ABS asked whether people had drunk sugary drinks the day before, as well as collecting data about their daily diets. Here are some key takeaways:

• between 1995 and 2023, there was a 65.28% drop in the proportion of children drinking sugary drinks

• the number of adults drinking sugary drinks fell from 40.2% in 2011–12 to 29.9% in 2023

• but adults still consume about 5% more sugary drinks than children

• on average, Australians have less sugar in their diet than they did a decade ago.

This change isn’t just about soft drinks. We’re also reducing the amount of sugar in our tea and coffee, eating fewer lollies and desserts, and reaching for fruit juice a little less often.

Some of the most significant changes have been in Australian children. In the mid-1990s, children were getting almost one-fifth of their daily energy from sugar. Today that figure is closer to only one-eighth, and our overall energy intake is quite similar.

What’s behind the change?

The new data suggests that efforts from individuals, families, communities and some food manufacturers to reduce sugar intake over the past few years may be working.

This drop in sugary drinks may reflect a growing awareness of the negative effects of sugar due to social media campaigns, as well as clearer labelling on food and beverage products, increased public messaging, and industry changes, such as more brands offering lower-sugar alternatives.

But progress is only part of the story

Even though people are consuming less sugar, obesity rates continue to climb in kids and adults.

Researchers suggest this shows sugar is just one part of the story and that overall diet quality and broader eating patterns also play a big role in our health, rather than focusing on sugar alone.

Discretionary foods – including snacks, chips, convenience meals, chocolate and other highly processed foods – still make up around a third (31.3%) of the average Australian diet.

This means many of us are still regularly having sweet drinks and highly processed foods. Overall, these foods chip away at Australia’s recent progress by offering new and different sources of added sugars and excess energy that are still considered empty calories and carry their own health risks with little nutrition.

What should we do next?

The new data shows signs of real improvement in tackling the amount of sugar in our diets. But we aren’t in the clear yet.

To turn these positive trends about sugar into sustained improvements, we need to consider:

• stronger government action to support all communities in tackling broader challenges in the food system, such as food insecurity and limited access to healthy food, often leading to people eating more highly processed foods

• policies such as sugary drink taxes (used abroad with success), restrictions on marketing junk food to kids, and clear front-of-pack labels

• more incentives for industry to reformulate products to lower-sugar options where possible

• education campaigns to help communities and schools where high-sugar habits remain common learn about healthy alternatives without shame and stigma

• further data collection, so we can understand where sugar in diet comes from, beyond sugary drinks.

Although Australia may be losing its historically “sweet tooth”, ensuring a lasting change will take continued effort.

Lauren Ball, Professor of Community Health and Wellbeing, The University of Queensland; Emily Burch, Accredited Practising Dietitian and Lecturer, Southern Cross University, and Mackenzie Derry, PhD Candidate in Nutrition, The University of Queensland

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Even a single night of sleep trouble can feel distressing and lonely. You toss and turn, stare at the ceiling, and wonder how you’ll cope tomorrow. No wonder many people start to worry they’ve developed insomnia.

Insomnia is one of the most talked-about sleep problems, but it’s also one of the most misunderstood.

But just because you can’t sleep, it doesn’t mean you have insomnia. You might have another sleep disorder, or none at all.

What is insomnia?

Let’s clear up some terms, and separate short-term or intermittent sleep problems from what health professionals call “insomnia disorder”.

Sleep problems can involve being awake when you want to be asleep. This could be lying in bed for ages trying to fall asleep, waking in the middle of the night for hours, or waking up too early. Having a sleep problem is a subjective experience – you don’t need to tally up lost hours to prove it’s a problem.

But insomnia disorder is the official term to describe a more problematic and persistent pattern of sleep difficulties. And this long-term or chronic sleep disorder has clear diagnostic criteria. These include at least three nights a week of poor sleep, lasting three months or more. These criteria help researchers and clinicians make sure they’re talking about the same thing, and not confusing it with another sleep problem.

So, what are some reasons why a sleep problem might not be insomnia?

1. It’s short term, or comes and goes

About a third of adults will have a bout of “acute insomnia” in a given year. This short-term problem is typically triggered by stress, illness or big life changes.

The good news is that about 72% of people with acute insomnia return to normal sleep after a few weeks.

Insomnia disorder is a longer-term, persistent problem.

2. It doesn’t affect you the next day

Some people lie awake at night but still function well during the day. More fragmented and less refreshing sleep is also a near-universal part of ageing.

So if your sleep problem doesn’t significantly affect you the next day, it usually isn’t considered to be insomnia.

For people with insomnia, the struggle with sleep spills into the day and affects their mood, energy, concentration and wellbeing. Worry and distress about not sleeping can then make the problem worse, which creates a frustrating cycle of worrying and not sleeping.

3. It’s more about work or caring

If you feel tired during the day, an important question is whether you’re giving yourself enough time to sleep. Sometimes sleep problems reflect a “sleep opportunity” that is too short or too irregular.

Work schedules, child care, or late-night commitments can cut sleep short, and sleep can slip down the priority list. In these cases, the problem is insufficient sleep, not insomnia.

You might have noisy neighbours or an annoying cat. These can also affect your sleep, and reduce your “sleep opportunity”.

The average healthy adult gets around seven hours sleep (though this varies widely). For someone who needs seven, it usually means setting aside about eight to allow for winding down, drifting off, and waking overnight.

4. It’s another sleep disorder

Other sleep disorders can look like insomnia, such as:

• obstructive sleep apnoea (when your breathing stops multiple times during sleep) can cause frequent awakenings through the night and daytime sleepiness

• restless legs syndrome creates an irresistible urge to move your legs in the evening that often interferes with falling asleep. It’s often described as jittery feelings or having “creepy crawlies”, and is often undiagnosed

• circadian rhythm problems, such as being a natural night owl in an early-bird world, can also lead to trouble falling asleep.

5. Medications and substances are interfering

Caffeine, alcohol and nicotine all create insomnia symptoms and worsen the quality of sleep.

Certain medications can also interfere with sleep, such as stimulants (for conditions such as attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder or ADHD) and beta-blockers (for various heart conditions).

These issues need to be considered before labelling the problem as insomnia. However, it’s important to keep taking your medication as prescribed and discuss any concerns with your doctor.

Getting the right help

If your sleep is worrying you, the best first step is to see your GP. They can help rule out other causes, review your medications, or refer you for a sleep study if needed.

However, once insomnia becomes frequent, chronic (long term) and distressing, you can worry too much about your sleep, constantly check or track your sleep, or try too hard to sleep, for instance by spending too much time in bed. These psychological and behavioural mechanisms can backfire, and make good sleep even less likely.

That’s why “cognitive behavioural therapy for insomnia” (or CBT-I) is recommended as the first-line treatment.

This is more effective, and longer-lasting than sleeping pills. This therapy is available via specially trained GPs, and sleep psychologists. You can take part in person or online.

In the meantime

If you’re in a rough patch of sleep:

• remind yourself that short runs of poor sleep usually settle on their own

• avoid lying in bed panicking if you wake at 3.30am. Instead, step out of bed or use the time in a way that feels restful

• keep a consistent wake-up time, even after a poor night. Try to get some morning sunlight to reset your body clock

• make sure you’re putting aside the right amount of time for sleep – not too little, not too much.

Amelia Scott, Honorary Affiliate and Clinical Psychologist at the Woolcock Institute of Medical Research, and Macquarie University Research Fellow, Macquarie University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

It’s a quiet morning. You lace up your shoes, step outside and begin a brisk morning stroll. But as you take those first few steps, there it is, a faint grinding noise, almost like the crunch of gravel underfoot, except … the sound is coming from your knee!

Thinking back, you recall noticing a similar sound as you were walking up the stairs last week. You pause, do some quick stretches and continue walking. But the grinding sound quickly returns.

A wave of dread follows: Is there something wrong with my knee? Is that bone-on-bone? Am I getting arthritis?

This is a common experience for people of all ages. Before you hit the panic button, let’s unpack what these noisy knees – known in medical terms as “knee crepitus” – might really mean.

What is knee crepitus? How common is it?

Knee crepitus refers to the audible crackling, creaking or grinding sounds that occur when you bend or straighten your knee. You might hear it when climbing stairs, standing up from a chair, or even just as you walk.

Surprisingly, we don’t know what actually causes knee crepitus. Theories suggest these knee joint noises may be attributed to damaged knee cartilage, tendons moving over bones, or the popping of normal gas bubbles in the fluid surrounding the knee.

But current scientific evidence is insufficient to confidently determine the origin of this common symptom.

Our recent review of the 103 studies of knee crepitus (involving 36,439 people) found 41% of people in the general population had noisy knees.

There is a common perception that this crackling, creaking or grinding noise is a sign of a damaged or arthritic knee. However 36% of people who had no pain and had never injured their knee also had knee crepitus.

So, knee crepitus is common across the population, including among people with no knee problems at all.

But I heard it’s an early sign of arthritis…

Having knee crepitus can create worry, and make people fearful of exercising and using their knees. People often ask: Am I causing further damage to my knees? Does this mean I’m going to get arthritis?

Noisy knees are more common among older adults with arthritis: 81% of people with osteoarthritis have knee crepitus.

However, knee crepitus isn’t always a sign of impending knee problems and shouldn’t stop you from exercising and using your knees. In a study of 3,495 older adults (mean age 61 years), two-thirds of people who reported “always” having knee crepitus did not develop symptomatic osteoarthritis over the next four years.

If you’re a younger adult with a previous knee injury, the story is much the same: knee crepitus is still common, particularly after a knee injury, but it’s not always a sign of underlying problems.

Our recent study looked at 112 young adults (with a median age of 28) who had a previous knee injury requiring surgery. We found those with knee crepitus were twice as likely to have cartilage damage (particularly in the kneecap area) in the first year post-surgery. However, having knee crepitus did not mean worse outcomes in the future.

It seems that while those with knee crepitus may experience worse pain and symptoms in the early stages following knee injury, this does not translate to worse recovery or greater rates of osteoarthritis over the long term.

What should I do about my noisy knees?

Given noisy knees are common in those without knee pain, injury or arthritis, you generally shouldn’t be concerned. Yes, your knees might wake your baby as you step away from their cot, and perhaps a quiet yoga studio might draw focus on your knees, but generally speaking, if it’s not painful, it’s nothing to worry about.

Unfortunately, there are no effective treatments for knee crepitus. The best advice is to keep doing the things that help to improve overall knee health: getting regular exercise, both aerobic and resistance-based, and achieving and maintaining a healthy body weight.

Just be cautious about sourcing information online, as more than half of the advice available on the internet about knee clicking isn’t supported by research.

So, when should you be concerned?

Although knee crepitus is often benign, there are circumstances where you could consult your health-care provider. This includes if your noisy knees are:

• accompanied by pain, swelling, instability, or locking

• associated with other signs of arthritis, such as stiffness, redness, or reduced mobility.

In such cases, a health-care provider may recommend a physical assessment to examine structures in and around the knee joint, and evaluate the impact of your symptoms on your quality of life and participation in activities.

The clinician may recommend:

• physiotherapy and exercise to strengthen supporting muscles
• seeing a dietitian for advice about weight management
• anti-inflammatory medication.

Most importantly, creaky knees alone, without other symptoms, are not normally cause for concern. So, lace up those shoes and keep moving.

Jamon Couch, Lecturer, Department of Microbiology, Anatomy, Physiology & Pharmacology, and PhD Candidate, La Trobe University and Adam Culvenor, Senior Research Fellow in Sport and Exercise Medicine, La Trobe University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Have you recently cut down on caffeine and feel like you’re having the most vivid dreams of your life?

While there are a number of potential benefits of reducing our caffeine intake – such as whiter teeth and fewer trips to the toilet – we often hear one downside of cutting back on caffeine is the emergence of vivid (and sometimes scary) dreams.

It’s a strange and specific effect that many people say kicks in within days of reducing caffeine intake.

But is there actually any science behind this? Let’s look at what the research can tell us.

How caffeine affects sleep

Caffeine is a stimulant that makes us feel alert and awake. It works by blocking a chemical in our brain called adenosine.

Adenosine usually builds up during the day while we’re awake and active. By the evening, the build-up of adenosine in our brains helps us to feel sleepy. Adenosine gets cleared away while we sleep and we wake ideally feeling refreshed, ready for the adenosine to build up again.

When we have caffeine, it blocks adenosine’s signal. So, while the adenosine is still there, we don’t feel the sleepiness as strongly. When the caffeine wears off, our urge to sleep increases (the caffeine crash).

Caffeine has a half-life of around three to six hours, meaning half the caffeine we consume is still in our body after this time and, importantly, still affecting adenosine. That’s why, for many people, having caffeine in the afternoon or evening can make it harder to fall asleep at night.

By interfering with our adenosine signalling, caffeine can also make our sleep more disrupted and reduce the overall amount of sleep we get. This is especially true for our deep, restorative non-rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep. Overall, the research clearly shows the later we have caffeine and the more we have, the worse it is for our sleep.

There’s not a lot of direct research on whether cutting down on caffeine makes our dreams more vivid. Most studies focus on how caffeine affects sleep rather than what happens in our dreams.

But that doesn’t mean we’re totally in the dark. We know sleep quality and dreaming are closely linked.

So why might less caffeine = more vivid dreams?

Even though there’s no direct proof, people keep saying the same thing: they cut back on caffeine and within a few nights, their dreams start feeling more vivid, detailed, or just plain weird.

While cutting back on caffeine will not directly cause vivid dreams, there is a plausible link. Since caffeine can reduce total sleep and increase night-time wake-ups, especially when consumed later in the day, cutting back can let our body “rebound”. When we get more sleep, this can increase the amount of rapid eye movement (REM) sleep we get.

REM is a phase of sleep when our body is relaxed but our brain is very active. It’s also the stage of sleep associated with dreams. More REM sleep can mean more opportunity for our brain to produce vivid and elaborate dreams.

REM sleep is also the stage of sleep we are most likely to wake up from during the night, and if we wake up from REM sleep we are likely to remember our dreams, because they are “fresh” in our memory.

So, cutting back on caffeine can mean we get more REM sleep, which means more opportunity to dream and more opportunity to remember our dreams.

Of course, sleep is complex and so are dreams. Not everyone will suddenly have vivid dreams after ditching caffeine, and the effect might only last for a few days or weeks.

The bottom line is there’s not a lot of hard evidence linking cutting back on caffeine to vivid dreams, but there could be an association. Caffeine affects our sleep. Sleep affects our dreaming. And when we take caffeine out of the equation, or reduce it, this might give our brain a chance to spend more time in REM sleep.

It’s all in the timing

When we think of caffeine, we commonly think of coffee and energy drinks. But caffeine can also be found in certain fizzy drinks, chocolate, tea, pre-workout supplements and medications.

Caffeine has a number of benefits, including for cognitive function and mental health. For example, some studies have shown coffee drinkers have a lower risk of depression, while caffeine has been associated with a reduced risk of neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson’s disease. Coffee also contains B vitamins and antioxidants which are essential components of a healthy diet.

For shiftworkers, particularly those working at night, caffeine is often a way to manage fatigue. And even those of us who don’t do shift work may not be able to get stuck into the day’s tasks without that first (or second) cup of coffee.

If you’re not keen to cut out caffeine completely, but want to optimise your sleep, it’s all in the timing. Try avoiding caffeine for at least eight hours before bedtime, and steer clear of big doses within 12 hours of bedtime. Your sleep may thank you and your dreams may just surprise you.

Charlotte Gupta, Sleep Researcher, Appleton Institute, HealthWise Research Group, CQUniversity Australia and Carissa Gardiner, Postdoctoral Research Fellow - Sports Performance, Recovery, Injury, and New Technologies, Australian Catholic University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Around one in eight (1.3 million) Australian households experienced food insecurity in 2023. This means they didn’t always have enough money to buy the amount or quality of food they needed for an active and healthy life.

The data, released on Friday by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), show food insecurity is now a mainstream public health and equity challenge.

When funds are tight, food budgets suffer

The main driver of food insecurity in Australia is financial pressure.

Housing costs and energy bills expenses consume much of household income, leaving food as the most flexible part of the budget.

When money runs short, families cut back on groceries, buy cheaper but less nutritious food, skip meals, or rely on food charities.

These strategies come at the expense of nutrition, health and wellbeing.

Inflation has added further pressure. The cost of food has risen substantially over the past two years, with groceries for a family of four costing around $1,000 per fortnight.

Who is most affected?

Not all households are affected equally. Single parents face the highest rates of food insecurity, with one in three (34%) struggling to afford enough food.

Families with children are more vulnerable (16%) than those without (8%).

Group households, often made up of students or young workers, are also heavily affected at 28%.

Rates are even higher for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander households, where 41% report food insecurity.

Income remains a defining factor. Nearly one in four (23.2% of) households in the lowest income bracket experience food insecurity, compared with just 3.6% in the highest.

These headline numbers are only part of the story. Past research shows higher risks of food insecurity for some other groups:

• rural and remote communities face higher food prices and limited outlets. Some areas are becoming “food deserts” where affordable, nutritious food simply isn’t available

• university students and young adults juggle unstable work and housing costs while studying

• temporary residents are often excluded from available supports

• culturally and linguistically diverse households can struggle to access affordable, culturally appropriate food.

While the ABS survey can not provide local breakdowns, it will also be important to know which states and territories have higher rates of food insecurity, to better inform state-level responses.

What are the impacts?

Food insecurity is both a symptom and a cause of poor health.

It leads to poorer quality diets, as households cut back on fruit, vegetables and protein-rich foods that spoil quickly. Instead, they may rely on processed items that are cheaper, more filling and keep for longer.

The ongoing stress of worrying about not having enough food takes a toll on mental health and increases social isolation.

Together these pressures increase the risk of chronic diseases including diabetes, heart disease and some cancers.

For children, not having enough food affects concentration, learning and long-term development.

Breaking this cycle means recognising that improving health depends on improving food security. Left unaddressed, food insecurity deepens existing inequalities across generations.

What can we do about it?

We already know the solutions to food insecurity and they are evidence-based.

Strengthening income support by increasing the amount of JobSeeker and other government payments is crucial. This would ensure households have enough money to cover food alongside other essentials.

Investment in universal school meals, such as free lunch programs, can guarantee children at least one nutritious meal a day.

Policies that make healthy food more affordable and available in disadvantaged areas are also important, whether through subsidies, price regulation, or support for local retailers.

Community-based approaches, such as food co-operatives where members share bulk-buying power and social supermarkets that sell donated or surplus food at low cost can help people buy cheaper food. However, they cannot be a substitute for systemic reform.

Finally, ongoing monitoring of food insecurity must be embedded in national health and social policy frameworks so we can track progress over time. The last ABS data on food insecurity was collected ten years ago, and we cannot wait another decade to understand how Australians are faring.

The National Food Security Strategy is being developed by the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry with guidance from a new National Food Council. It provides an opportunity to align these actions, set measurable targets and ensure food security is addressed at a national scale.

Food insecurity is widespread and shaped by disadvantage, with serious health consequences. The question is no longer whether food insecurity exists, but whether Australia will act on the solutions.

Katherine Kent, Senior Lecturer in Nutrition and Dietetics, University of Wollongong

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Rupert Murdoch has succeeded in securing his vision for the future of News Corporation, the global media empire he has always thought of as his family business.

To achieve this, he has torn apart his family. He has also ensured his media outlets, especially Fox News, remain committed to his hard right-wing views.

With hindsight, this deal was inevitable. The 94-year-old mogul had just one remaining job to do as chairman emeritus of News Corp: to ensure that when he dies, the company he built and moulded remains in his image.

This announcement says he has found a way, which may give him some comfort but is profoundly disappointing to anyone who cares about public interest journalism.

There’s no longer any prospect of his children from his first and second marriages, Prudence, Elisabeth and James, who are now known as the “departing beneficiaries”, staging a coup after his death to wrest control from Rupert’s chosen successor and elder son Lachlan, who has headed News Corporation and Fox Corporation since Murdoch stepped aside in 2023.

Lachlan has taken a lesson from Rupert’s dealmaking playbook. He has thrown money at the problem by paying his three siblings more than he had previously offered for their respective shares. According to The New York Times, the three siblings will receive US$1.1 billion (A$1.7 billion) each for all their shares in the company.

Their agreement brings an end to the bitter battle the three siblings fought with their father and brother over the latter’s infamous attempt to revoke a seemingly irrevocable trust created at the end of Murdoch’s longest marriage, of 32 years, to Anna Murdoch (now Anna Maria dePeyster).

She had hated how her husband pitted their children against one another in the battle for succession, so she negotiated an agreement that would give each of the four children from the first two marriages a vote in the family trust. It also ensured Rupert retained enough votes in the trust so he could not be outvoted by his four (voting) children.

When Rupert anointed Lachlan his successor, upsetting the others, speculation was aired that when Rupert died, and his votes with him, the three siblings might oust Lachlan as chief executive and take control of the company. Worse, in Rupert’s eyes, they might change the editorial direction of the company, in particular Fox News.

That is what has changed. The family trust has also been re-engineered with an increased lifespan from 2030 to 2050, and folds in Murdoch’s daughters from his third marriage, to Wendi Deng – Grace and Chloe. This shores up the trust so they can’t sell out and dilute Lachlan’s shareholding.

Under the deal, a new company called Holdco, owned by Lachlan, Grace and Chloe, will own all the remaining shares of News Corp and Fox Corporation that previously had been held by the Murdoch family trust. The departing beneficiaries will sell their personal holdings in News Corp and Fox so none of them has any interest in either business. What’s more, they’ve agreed to a standstill clause that prevents them or their affiliates buying back in.

In 2019 alone, the company News Corporation made a reported US$71 billion (A$107 billion) from the sale of its entertainment assets to Disney. After that sale, the children were each given US$2 billion (just over A$3 billion).

Having already been referred to in the litigation as “white, privileged, multi billionaire trust-fund babies”, the three departing siblings have been made even wealthier by this agreement.

It was announced in a company press release on September 8 with an uncharacteristically sedate headline: “News Corp announces resolution of Murdoch family trust matter”.

It appears the decision to settle was in part driven by signals emanating from the probate court in Reno, which last year ruled in favour of Prudence, Elisabeth and James. Recently, however, the presiding appellate judge, Lynne Jones, appeared supportive of Rupert and Lachlan, saying “Who knows better than Rupert Murdoch the strengths and weaknesses of his family and his children?”

This may have weakened the three children’s bargaining power and forced them to accept some sort of buyout.

James may have contributed to this by granting an interview to The Atlantic which was published in February, in which he was highly critical of his father and gave away inside information from the probate hearings. Rupert and Lachlan’s lawyers pushed for James to be punished, a move that appeared to have support from the Reno court.

Clearly it was wishful thinking to believe Prudence, Elisabeth and James would stage a takeover and restore sensible programming to the Murdoch media. But it remains an irony, in a case replete with them, that it was James’ candid comments in an insightful 13,000-word profile casting much-needed light on a notoriously secretive family, which weakened the three siblings’ bargaining position.

Those comments helped ensure Rupert, and ultimately Lachlan, will be able to continue running their media empire as they see fit. Initially, that will mean little change, which is of course the problem. If News mastheads and Fox News continue as they have, we can look forward to more coverage denying the need to urgently act on climate change, more distortion of important issues and more support for assaults on democracy by the Trump administration. This is the kind of content that prompted James, if not all of the departing beneficiaries, to protest in the first place.

At least now we know the answer to this question: What choice would three multi billionaires make if they were offered another billion dollars each or the opportunity to transform a global media business for the better?

Andrew Dodd, Professor of Journalism, Director of the Centre for Advancing Journalism, The University of Melbourne and Matthew Ricketson, Professor of Communication, Deakin University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The Australian government has announced plans to ban “nudify” tools and hold tech platforms accountable for failing to prevent users from accessing them.

This is part of the government’s overall strategy to move towards a “digital duty of care” approach to online safety. This approach places legal responsibility on tech companies to take proactive steps to identify and prevent online harms on their platforms and services.

So how will the nudify ban happen in practice? And will it be effective?

How are nudify tools being used?

Nudify or “undress” tools are available on app stores and websites. They use artificial intelligence (AI) methods to create realistic but fake sexually explicit images of people.

Users can upload a clothed, everyday photo which the tool analyses and then digitally removes the person’s clothing by putting their face onto a nude body (or what the AI “thinks” the person would look like naked).

The problem is that nudify tools are easy to use and access. The images they create can also look highly realistic and can cause significant harms, including bullying, harassment, distress, anxiety, reputational damage and self-harm.

These apps – and other AI tools used to generate image-based abuse material – are an increasing problem.

In June this year, Australia’s eSafety Commissioner revealed that reports of deepfakes and other digitally altered images of people under 18 have more than doubled in the past 18 months.

In the first half of 2024, 16 nudify websites that were named in a lawsuit issued by the San Francisco City Attorney David Chiu were visited more than 200 million times.

In a July 2025 study, 85 nudify websites had a combined average of 18.5 million visitors for the preceding six months. Some 18 of the websites – which rely on tech services such as Google’s sign-on system, or Amazon and Cloudflare’s hosting or content delivery services – made between US$2.6 million and $18.4 million in the past six months.

Aren’t nudify tools already illegal?

For adults, sharing (or threatening to share) non-consensual deepfake sexualised images is a criminal offence under most Australian state, federal and territory laws. But aside from Victoria and New South Wales, it is not currently a criminal offence to create digitally generated intimate images of adults.

For children and adolescents under 18, the situation is slightly different. It’s a criminal offence not only to share child sexual abuse material (including fictional, cartoon or fake images generated using AI), but also to create, access, possess and solicit this material.

Developing, hosting and promoting the use of these tools for creating either adult or child content is not currently illegal in Australia.

Last month, independent federal MP Kate Chaney introduced a bill that would make it a criminal offence to download, access, supply or offer access to nudify apps and other tools of which the dominant or sole purpose is the creation of child sexual abuse material.

The government has not taken on this bill. It instead wants to focus on placing the onus on technology companies.

How will the nudify ban actually work?

Minister for Communications, Anika Wells, said the government will work closely with industry to figure out the best way to proactively restrict access to nudify tools.

At this point, it’s unclear what the time frames are or how the ban will work in practice. It might involve the government “geoblocking” access to nudify sites, or directing the platforms to remove access (including advertising links) to the tools.

It might also involve transparency reporting from platforms on what they’re doing to address the problem, including risk assessments for illegal and harmful activity.

But government bans and industry collaboration won’t completely solve the problem.

Users can get around geographic restrictions with VPNs or proxy servers. The tools can also be used “off the radar” via file-sharing platforms, private forums or messaging apps that already host nudify chatbots.

Open-source AI models can also be fine-tuned to create new nudify tools.

What are tech companies already doing?

Some tech companies have already taken action against nudify tools.

Discord and Apple have removed nudify apps and developer accounts associated with nudify apps and websites.

Meta also bans adult content, including AI-generated nudes. However, Meta came under fire for inadvertently promoting nudify apps through advertisements – even though those ads violate the company’s standards. The company recently filed a lawsuit against Hong Kong nudify company CrushAI, after the company ran more than 87,000 ads across Meta platforms in violation of Meta’s rules on non-consensual intimate imagery.

Tech companies can do much more to mitigate harms from nudify and other deepfake tools. For example, they can ensure guardrails are in place for deepfake generators, remove content more quickly, and ban or suspend user accounts.

They can restrict search results and block keywords such as “undress” or “nudify”, issue “nudges” or warnings to people using related search terms, and use watermarking and provenance indicators to identify the origins of images.

They can also work collaboratively together to share signals of suspicious activity (for example, advertising attempts) and share digital hashes (a unique code like a fingerprint) of known image-based abuse or child sexual abuse content with other platforms to prevent recirculation.

Education is also key

Placing the onus on tech companies and ensuring they are held accountable to reduce the harms from nudify tools is important. But it’s not going to stop the problem.

Education must also be a key focus. Young people need comprehensive education on how to critically examine and discuss digital information and content, including digital data privacy, digital rights and respectful digital relationships.

Digital literacy and respectful relationships education shouldn’t be based on shame and fear-based messaging but rather on affirmative consent. That means giving young people the skills to recognise and negotiate consent to receive, request and share intimate images, including deepfake images.

We need effective bystander interventions. This means teaching bystanders how to effectively and safely challenge harmful behaviours and how to support victim-survivors of deepfake abuse.

We also need well-resourced online and offline support systems so victim-survivors, perpetrators, bystanders and support persons can get the help they need.

If this article has raised issues for you, call 1800RESPECT on 1800 737 732 or visit the eSafety Commissioner’s website for helpful online safety resources. You can also contact Lifeline crisis support on 13 11 14 or text 0477 13 11 14, Suicide Call Back Services on 1300 659 467, or Kids Helpline on 1800 55 1800 (for young people aged 5-25). If you or someone you know is in immediate danger, call the police on 000.

Nicola Henry, Professor, Australian Research Council Future Fellow, & Deputy Director, Social Equity Research Centre, RMIT University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

For much of Sydney’s history, the city supported its population with crops, orchards, dairies, abattoirs, oyster beds, wineries and market gardens scattered across the basin.

In 1951, New South Wales’ soon-to-be premier Joseph Cahill saw the development pressures building on the city’s food bowl. In parliament, he promised Sydney’s rural areas would be preserved “for vital food production […] soil conservation, irrigation, afforestation”.

Cahill’s promise was in vain. Farms continued to be paved over or turned into housing as the suburban expansion gathered pace. Smaller urban farms disappeared in the face of pressures from developers and larger rural producers. Urban development has now severely weakened Sydney’s local food economy.

Sydney still has room to grow food, which would boost resilience in the face of climate threats and extreme weather. But the city has long been geared towards converting farmland into houses, shops or industries. Today, the city’s five million residents rely almost entirely on food transported into the city’s topographic basin.

We have unearthed the diversity of what was lost in our new book, Sydney’s Food Landscapes and in our Google Maps database of the city’s former wealth of food production sites.

Botany: Sydney’s backyard vegetable garden

In 1770, the naturalist Joseph Banks recorded the botanical abundance of Kamay (Botany Bay). He later convinced the British House of Commons this would quickly lead to a self-sustaining colony. Following reconnaissance, Governor Arthur Phillip moved the settlement north to Port Jackson, but European crops didn’t grow well in the sandstone soils.

The colony almost collapsed in the “hungry years” of 1788–92. Soil fertility is usually blamed for this, but we argue poor agricultural planning and social factors were also central causes.

In the mid-19th century, Botany became a prolific food district. Chinese market gardeners transformed sandy wetlands through highly productive cooperatives, ingenuity, irrigation and liberal application of night soil as fertiliser. At their peak, market gardeners supplied up to half the city’s vegetables, hawking vegetables such as cabbages and turnips door to door.

Prejudice and industrialisation intervened. In 1901, the Immigration Restriction Act came into effect – laws aimed at limiting Chinese migration. Market garden leases were withdrawn amid persistent racism.

By the 1970s, most had been displaced by factories, ports and airports, with a few gardens remaining today at Matraville, La Perouse, Arncliffe and Kyeemagh – fragile traces of an industry once vital to Sydney’s food security.

Hawkesbury: Sydney’s engine room

From Botany, the story moved inland. Wheat and maize fields in Parramatta proved the colony’s first real agricultural success, but slash-and-burn practices soon exhausted soils. Farmers switched to citrus orchards, planting as widely as Pittwater.

Dyarubbin (the Hawkesbury River) was the true catalyst making the colony viable. In the 1790s, these rich floodplains became the “granary of the colony”. The Darug had cultivated the yam daisy, murnong, on these flats for millennia. The bloody dispossession known as the Sydney Wars lasted decades.

Convicts, ex-convict emancipists and opportunistic officials planted wheat, maize, fruit and vegetables. By 1810, Governor Lachlan Macquarie had proclaimed five farming towns to secure food supply.

Sadly, even Sydney’s most fertile soils for agriculture would succumb to suburbanisation after World War II. Large land parcels continue to be lost. Turf-growing, ornamental plants and cut flowers further typically prove more lucrative than food.

Lost landscapes

Botany and the Hawkesbury are only part of a kaleidoscopic legacy.

Histories range from the troubling use of child labour to produce 40,000 cabbages a year on Cockatoo Island, to local triumphs such as the Granny Smith apple and Narrabeen Plum varieties.

Six cows brought by the First Fleet escaped and made their way to rich grasslands. When rediscovered in what is now Camden, their numbers had multiplied. The rich “Cowpastures” catalysed a pastoral industry which would eventually dominate half the continent.

Dairies proliferated, with 517 registered in 1932. The gaols at Parramatta and Long Bay produced convict-grown crops. Liverpool became home to Australia’s first irrigation district in 1856, before giving way to industrial-scale poultry farming and billion-dollar empires.

Oyster leases producing what were praised as “the world’s finest oysters” dotted the Georges River. Warriewood’s “glass city” of greenhouses foreshadowed Spain’s plastic megafarms.

Vineyards expanded before the Phylloxera mite devastated much of the industry in 1888. One of the oldest wineries was paved over in 2015 for the construction of the Western Sydney International Airport. In the early 20th century, the St George region became Sydney’s “salad bowl”.

Could it have been different?

England gives its farmland greater protection through green belts, while Oregon in the United States relies on urban growth boundaries. Japan uses “productive green zones” to protect millions of farms ringing large cities and the European Union has policy settings to help small and medium producers near cities.

By contrast, Sydney has historically treated farming as a mere transition stage before urban development. Mid 20th century plans for a green belt collapsed under developer pressure, as agriculture was written out of official metropolitan plans.

Eating the future

As development squeezed out local food production, more and more food had to be brought in. Sydney now relies on trucks, ships and planes importing food from farms hundreds or thousands of kilometres away. The energy required for transport is greater than the calorific energy in the food. The city’s food system is exposed to natural disasters, global supply shocks and climate volatility.

Over the last 70 years, Sydney has engulfed most of its local food producers. It wasn’t due to poor soils, floods or disappointing harvests. It was a deliberate choice to privilege capital gains above all else.

It’s a slow process to re-centre a city around local food production. But it can be done, if planners and decision makers protect farms and food producers the same way they protect heritage buildings, parks and water catchments. Like clean water, food production has to be treated as vital civic infrastructure – not expendable land. Not all has been lost. Western Sydney still has available farmland.

Sydney may have eaten itself. But it need not starve. Its spectral metropolitan food landscapes offer both warning and inspiration for more resilient, equitable and sustainable futures.

Joshua Zeunert, Scientia Associate Professor in Environmental Design, UNSW Sydney and Alys Daroy, Lecturer in English and Theatre, Murdoch University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

You’ve probably encountered images in your social media feeds that look like a cross between photographs and computer-generated graphics. Some are fantastical – think Shrimp Jesus – and some are believable at a quick glance – remember the little girl clutching a puppy in a boat during a flood?

These are examples of AI slop, low- to mid-quality content – video, images, audio, text or a mix – created with AI tools, often with little regard for accuracy. It’s fast, easy and inexpensive to make this content. AI slop producers typically place it on social media to exploit the economics of attention on the internet, displacing higher-quality material that could be more helpful.

AI slop has been increasing over the past few years. As the term “slop” indicates, that’s generally not good for people using the internet.

AI slop’s many forms

The Guardian published an analysis in July 2025 examining how AI slop is taking over YouTube’s fastest-growing channels. The journalists found that nine out of the top 100 fastest-growing channels feature AI-generated content like zombie football and cat soap operas.

Listening to Spotify? Be skeptical of that new band, The Velvet Sundown, that appeared on the streaming service with a creative backstory and derivative tracks. It’s AI-generated.

In many cases, people submit AI slop that’s just good enough to attract and keep users’ attention, allowing the submitter to profit from platforms that monetize streaming and view-based content.

The ease of generating content with AI enables people to submit low-quality articles to publications. Clarkesworld, an online science fiction magazine that accepts user submissions and pays contributors, stopped taking new submissions in 2024 because of the flood of AI-generated writing it was getting.

These aren’t the only places where this happens — even Wikipedia is dealing with AI-generated low-quality content that strains its entire community moderation system. If the organization is not successful in removing it, a key information resource people depend on is at risk.

Harms of AI slop

AI-driven slop is making its way upstream into people’s media diets as well. During Hurricane Helene, opponents of President Joe Biden cited AI-generated images of a displaced child clutching a puppy as evidence of the administration’s purported mishandling of the disaster response. Even when it’s apparent that content is AI-generated, it can still be used to spread misinformation by fooling some people who briefly glance at it.

AI slop also harms artists by causing job and financial losses and crowding out content made by real creators. The placement of this lower-quality AI-generated content is often not distinguished by the algorithms that drive social media consumption, and it displace entire classes of creators who previously made their livelihood from online content.

Wherever it’s enabled, you can flag content that’s harmful or problematic. On some platforms, you can add community notes to the content to provide context. For harmful content, you can try to report it.

Along with forcing us to be on guard for deepfakes and “inauthentic” social media accounts, AI is now leading to piles of dreck degrading our media environment. At least there’s a catchy name for it.

Adam Nemeroff, Assistant Provost for Innovations in Learning, Teaching, and Technology, Quinnipiac University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Every once in a while, you may look up towards the Sun and see strange bright lights on either side of it. Or perhaps you’ll be sitting in an aircraft, looking out the window at its shadow and see a circle of light, like a halo below (known as glories). Or, if you’re really adventurous, maybe you’ll even be out on a midnight walk with a full moon lighting your way, and see what appears to be a rainbow encircling the moon.

These are all beautiful examples of atmospheric optical phenomena. And a new paper has suggested they may appear in alien skies too.

These celestial wonders can tell us a lot about the state of the atmosphere at home on Earth as well as on other planets. Rainbows, for instance, the most well-known of these phenomena, can only form when light passes through spherical liquid droplets, like our normal rain on Earth. Therefore, there must be spherical liquid droplets in the atmosphere where the rainbows are observed.

Most planet atmospheres have some kind of crystalline aerosols (clouds of tiny particles) in them, from sodium chloride in Io (one of Jupiter’s moons), to carbon dioxide crystals in Mars. On Earth, these are generally ice crystals, often found in clouds as snowflakes. The orientation of these crystals, and how they change the light, dictates the type of optical phenomena you can see.

Sun dogs are another of these phenomena, where bright lights appear on either side of the Sun, sometimes even splitting white light into the colours of the rainbow. They form because of the light being bent by horizontally oriented hexagonal ice crystals high up in the atmosphere. If you want the best chance of seeing these, you should try to be at the same latitudes as Europe or Argentina during wintertime. Look for high altitude wispy clouds that are in front of the Sun, and you might get lucky.

Horizontal ice crystals can also create light pillars in extremely cold conditions, which look like coloured beams of light trailing to clouds over head. Vertical crystals form parhelic circles – a circle of light at the same height as the Sun. And crystals aligned with the electric fields above thunderstorms create crown flashes.

The new paper proposes that, from what we know of our own atmosphere, we can presume that similar optical phenomena happen on planets outside of our solar system (called exoplanets). It’s just a matter of spotting them and finding out why they occur.

Previous studies have shown that on many exoplanets the crystalline aerosols in their atmospheres are moved around and oriented in a multitude of different ways, much like on Earth.

Magnetic fields swirl around the planet, as they do on Earth, pushing and pulling along field lines. On Earth, this can be seen as the northern lights phenomena. Radiation pressure from a planet’s parent star pushes the crystals using the power of light, much like how the wind pushes boats. And the wind, often much faster than anywhere on Earth, speeds around the exoplanet, rushing from the hot, star-facing side of the exoplanet to the colder space-facing side as the planet spins.

A special type of exoplanet, hot Jupiters (so named because they’re huge, gassy and very hot) generally have incredibly fast winds (up to 18,000km/h) and high densities of crystalline aerosols, much like an incredibly fast-moving sandstorm.

This means that the main way that the crystals are oriented is through the superfast winds spinning around the planet. Imagine a fleet of boats all randomly turned around in a patch of ocean, then a massive gust of wind comes, turning them all so that they’re facing the same direction.

The researchers on the new paper previously used the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) to find evidence for tiny quartz crystals in the high altitude clouds of a hot Jupiter 1,300 light years away from Earth (WASP-17 b). These crystals have an elongated shape, like boats, so are more likely to be oriented with the wind. This led them to think about what optical properties could be seen with the wind-aligned crystals.

The optical phenomena that come from the crystals being oriented the same way cannot be seen by normal cameras. But scientists can use instruments such as those on the JWST to observe these effects.

We have already gained valuable information about faraway atmospheres from looking at their optical phenomena using the JWST. For example on Venus, rainbows and glories have been used by scientists to decipher the mysteries of Venus’ extreme heats and yellow colour.

A similar technique of observing glories has been used to detect the presence of long-lasting clouds on the exoplanet WASP-76b. The new knowledge of these clouds gives us insight into the exoplanet’s atmosphere. Now we know that there can be conditions for a stable temperature, which surprised scientists as half of the planet is hot enough to melt iron.

We can also guess what optical effects might occur on planets where we know what the atmosphere is made of. For example, in the high atmospheres of Jupiter and Saturn, where a special type of ammonia crystals are concentrated, we would expect to observe four separate sun dogs. Alas, on Earth, we can only ever see two at a time due to the shape of our atmospheric ice crystals.

Who knows what other wondrous phenomena we may see on other worlds. Who’s to say whether there couldn’t be a planet surrounded by continual rainbows? There is much more to learn about so many exoplanets. Optical phenomena such as sun dogs can tell us huge amounts about their atmospheres, which could help us in the search for habitable planets in the future.

Peter Berthelemy, PhD Candidate in Atmospheric Physics , University of Bath

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Scientists have discovered that Mars has an interior structure similar to Earth’s. Results from Nasa’s Insight mission suggest that the red planet has a solid inner core surrounded by a liquid outer core, potentially resolving a longstanding mystery.

The findings, which are published in Nature, have important implications for our understanding of how Mars evolved. Billions of years ago, the planet may have had a thicker atmosphere that allowed liquid water to flow on the surface.

This thicker atmosphere may have been kept in place by a protective magnetic field, like the one Earth has. However, Mars lacks such a field today. Scientists have wondered whether the loss of this magnetic field led to the red planet losing its atmosphere to space over time and becoming the cold, dry desert it is today.

A key property of the Earth is that its core has a solid centre and liquid outer core. Convection within the liquid layer creates a dynamo, producing the magnetic field. The field deflects charged particles ejected by the Sun, preventing them from stripping the Earth’s atmosphere away over time and leading to the habitable conditions we know and enjoy.

From residual magnetisation in the crust, we think that Mars did once have a magnetic field, possibly from a core structure similar to that of Earth. However, scientists think that the core must have cooled and stopped moving at some point in its history.

On the surface of Mars there is a tremendous amount of evidence that liquid water once flowed, suggesting more hospitable conditions in the past. The evidence comes in many forms, including dry lake beds with minerals that formed under water, or the dramatic valley networks carved by rivers and streams. However, the Martian atmosphere is thin today and the necessary amount of water is nowhere to be found.

Teams working with the seismometers on Nasa’s InSight Mars lander first identified the Martian core and determined that it was actually still liquid. Now, the new results from Huixing Bi, at the University of Science and Technology of China in Hefei and colleagues, show that there may also be a solid layer inside the liquid core.

The nature of the interior structure of Mars has been an intriguing mystery. Was it ever like Earth’s, with a dynamic liquid layer around a solid centre? Or did Mars’ smaller size prevent such a formation? How big must a planet be to gain the protection of a magnetic field, like Earth’s, and support a habitable climate?

To understand what happened, how Mars evolved, we need to understand Mars today. These questions about Mars’ atmosphere, water, and core have motivated several high profile Mars missions. While the Nasa Mars rovers, Spirit, Opportunity, Curiosity, and Perseverance have studied the surface mineralogy, the European Space Agency’s ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter is studying the water cycle, Nasa’s Maven spacecraft is studying atmospheric loss to space, and Nasa’s InSight lander was sent to study seismic activity.

In 2021, Simon Stähler, from ETH Zurich in Switzerland, and colleagues, published a seminal paper from the InSight mission. In it, they presented an analysis of the way that seismic waves pass through Mars from Mars quakes in the vicinity of InSight, through the mantle, through the core, and then reflecting off the other side of the planet and reaching InSight.

They detected evidence of the core for the first time and were able to constrain its size and density. They modelled a core with a single liquid layer that was both larger and less dense than expected and without a solid inner core. The size was huge, about half of Mars’ radius of 1,800 km, and the low density implied that it was full of lighter elements. The light elements, such as carbon, sulphur, and hydrogen, change the core’s melt temperature and affect how it could crystallise over time, making it more likely to remain liquid.

The solid inner core (610 km radius) found by Huxing Bi and colleagues is hugely significant. The very presence of a solid inner core shows that crystallisation and solidification is taking place as the planet cools over time.

The core structure is more like Earth’s and therefore more likely to have produced a dynamo at some point. On Earth, it is the thermal (heat) changes between the solid inner core, the liquid layer, and the mantle that drive convection in the liquid layer and create the dynamo that leads to a magnetic field. This result makes it more likely that a dynamo on Mars was possible in the past.

With Simon Stähler and co-authors reporting a fully liquid core and Huxing Bi and colleagues reporting a solid inner core, it might seem as if there will be some controversy. But that is not the case. This is an excellent example of progress in scientific data collection and analysis.

Competing models of Mars

InSight landed in November 2018 and its last contact with Earth occurred in December 2022. With Stähler publishing in 2021, there is some new data from InSight to look at. Stähler’s model was revised in 2023 by Henri Samuel, from the Université Paris Cité, and colleagues. A revised core size and density helped reconcile the InSight results with some other pieces of evidence.

In Stähler’s paper, a solid inner core is specifically not ruled out. The authors state that the signal strength of the analysed data was not strong enough to be used to identify seismic waves crossing an inner core boundary. This was an excellent first measurement of the core of Mars, but it left the question of additional layers and structure open.

For the latest study in Nature, the scientists achieved their result through a careful selection of specific seismic event types, at a certain distance from InSight. They also employ some novel data analysis techniques to get a weak signal out of the instrument noise.

This result is sure to have an impact within the community, and it will be very interesting to see whether additional re-analyses of the InSight data support or reject their model. A thorough discussion of the broader geological context and whether the model fits other available data that constrain the core size and density fit will also follow.

Understanding the interior structure of planets in our Solar System is critical to developing ideas about how they form, grow, and evolve. Prior to InSight, models for Mars that were similar to Earth were investigated, but were certainly not favoured.

Kevin Olsen, UKSA Mars Science Fellow, Department of Physics, University of Oxford and Mhairi Reid, DPhil Student, University of Oxford

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

As a fashion sustainability researcher, finding the ReTuna shopping mall in Eskilstuna was a delightful surprise. Stepping into this Swedish shopping centre felt refreshingly different – it is the first in the world to sell only secondhand and repurposed items.

During numerous visits to the shopping mall over the last 18 months, I have spoken to customers, managers and employees – all of whom seemed excited by ReTuna’s innovative business model.

The mall instantly feels very different to the cluttered charity shops or vintage boutiques most of us associate with pre-owned retail. There is a wide range of products on sale – fashion, sports equipment, household items, children’s toys, antiques – and even an Ikea secondhand store selling previously used and repaired furniture.

This is not just a retail space. It is a municipality-led experiment in circular consumption, where everything sold has been donated by the public.

ReTuna was established in 2015 as part of Eskilstuna’s climate and waste reduction strategy. Built alongside the city’s recycling centre, it includes a dedicated drop-off point called The Return, where residents donate unwanted items. These are sorted and redistributed to the retailers in the mall, creating a low-cost, low-waste circular system.

The model is only possible because of public funding and local government support – a reminder that circular innovation often requires structural investment, not just consumer goodwill.

However, what makes ReTuna so distinctive is not just its inventory but its atmosphere. Consumers describe it as “accessible”, “curated” and “convenient”. The mall’s layout and product displays mirror conventional retail spaces, making secondhand shopping feel stylish and enjoyable.

One shop manager told me customers often mistake the secondhand items for new, a testament to how fashionability and design are used to make reuse attractive without increasing cost. At ReTuna, the clean, calm environment helps make ethical consumption feel desirable and emotionally rewarding. As one shopper put it: “It’s not just ethical, it’s beautiful.”

Retailers use low-cost stock and infrastructure to create visually appealing stores. The result is a pleasurable shopping experience that challenges the stigma of secondhand. While affordability and environmental values remain central, ReTuna also reimagines what sustainable retail can look and feel like.

Demand for pre-loved

Consumer interest in “pre-loved” fashion is accelerating, with the secondhand market growing 2.7 times faster than the broader apparel market, according to one recent industry report. Globally, it is projected to reach US$367 billion (£272 billion) by 2029.

And it is not only pre-owned fashion that is growing. Another market research report forecasts the wider secondhand products market will reach US$1.04 trillion by 2035, growing at a compound annual rate of 17.2%.

In a YouGov survey spanning 17 markets, 43% of secondhand buyers favoured instore purchases, compared with 39% who preferred online (19% were undecided). ReTuna is part of this shift – not as an outlier, but a glimpse of what mainstream retail could become.

This pioneering Swedish mall turned ten this year. It has grown from a local government initiative to an internationally recognised model of circular retail. The mall’s success shows that secondhand shopping does not have to feel like a compromise – it can be stylish, convenient and socially meaningful.

Circular retail is not just about what we buy, but how and where we buy it. ReTuna demonstrates that with the right infrastructure, design and public support, sustainable consumption can be embedded into everyday life – not as a chore but a rewarding experience.

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Mary-Ann Ball, Senior Lecturer, Fashion Sustainability and Marketing, Nottingham Trent University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Celebrity chef Jamie Oliver has stirred debate by calling the familiar five-a-day message “a lie”. Speaking to the Times, he argued that the real health benefits of fruit and vegetables only start to add up at seven, eight or even 11 portions a day.

He’s not wrong that more is better. Research shows us that the more servings of fruit and veg we eat per day, the more benefits we see to our health. But the story of how five servings became the standard recommendation is one of science meeting pragmatism.

When the five-a-day campaign was launched in the UK and Ireland more than 20 years ago, it was never meant to be the “perfect” target. Instead, it was a compromise – a number that struck a balance between the nutritional evidence and what public health experts thought people might realistically manage. Five portions was judged by researchers and marketeers to be a simple, memorable and achievable slogan – one that wouldn’t scare people off.

Today, five-a-day is one of the most recognisable public health messages – even if most UK adults still fall short of it.

But it may be time for this messaging to change, as a growing body of research shows that higher fruit and vegetable intakes are associated with lower risk of chronic diseases.

A meta-analysis of over 2 million people found that while five portions lowered risk of chronic diseases such as cardiovascular disease and cancer, the greatest benefits were seen at around ten portions of fruit and veg daily. Another UK study found that people eating seven or more portions of fruit and veg each day had a 42% lower risk of death compared to those eating less than one portion.

Excellence rarely comes from doing the bare minimum – and the evidence suggests we should be aiming higher.

Japan has long recommended ten (and more) portions of fruit and vegetables a day. Mediterranean countries, too, traditionally eat diets rich in fresh produce, beans, and legumes. Research suggests that populations that follow these dietary patterns tend to have lower rates of heart disease and longer life expectancy. Similar associations between higher intakes of fruit and vegetables and lower risk of death from any cause are reported in Japan, too.

The research is clear: higher intake of fruits and vegetables everyday brings tangible health benefits. So while five portions is a good starting point, aiming to include more fruits and vegetables into your daily diet will bring even greater health benefits.

What counts as a portion?

But some confusion lies in what a “portion” really means. The World Health Organization defines one portion as about 80g – roughly a handful. That could be an apple, two broccoli spears, three heaped tablespoons of peas or half a tin of beans. When you break it down like this, eight to 11 portions across three meals and snacks becomes less intimidating.

There are also many easy ways to add more fruit and veg every day. For breakfast, try adding berries to your cereal, a banana to your porridge or spinach in your omelette. For lunch, add salad to sandwiches, beans to your soup or extra veg into wraps.

Double up portions at dinner by eating two or three sides of veg, or bulk up sauces and curries with lentils, peppers or mushrooms. Snack smart by reaching for fruit, veggie sticks with hummus or roasted chickpeas instead of crisps.

You should also aim to eat a rainbow of different fruits and vegetables across the week, as variety is associated with even greater health benefits.

There’s a common myth that only fresh fruit and vegetables count. In reality, frozen, tinned (in water or natural juice) and dried all have a place. They can be cheaper, last longer and often retain just as many nutrients as fresh produce.

Juices and smoothies count too – but only as one portion a day because of their sugar content.

The five-a-day message is a starting point, but not the finish line. Anything is better than nothing – and if you’re eating just one or two portions now, getting to three or four is progress.

But the science is clear: more really is better. Jamie Oliver may be ambitious in suggesting 11 portions, but he’s right that aiming higher could bring big health gains.

Catherine Norton, Associate Professor Sport & Exercise Nutrition, University of Limerick

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The wildflowers of Britain include all manner of treasures – yet many people are only aware of a few, such as bluebells and foxgloves. A lot of its other flora are rare because of Britain’s location at the northern, western or even southern edges of their natural geographic – and hence climatic – ranges.

In fact, Britain has over 1,000 native species of wildflower, including 50 kinds of orchid, a few species like sundew that use sticky tentacles to eat insects, and others such as toothwort that live as parasites, plugging their roots into other plants to suck on their sap like botanical mosquitoes. There are even a few species, such as the ghost and bird’s-nest orchids, that extort all their food from soil fungi.

Many people think of plants as nice-looking greens. Essential for clean air, yes, but simple organisms. A step change in research is shaking up the way scientists think about plants: they are far more complex and more like us than you might imagine. This blossoming field of science is too delightful to do it justice in one or two stories.

This story is part of a series, Plant Curious, exploring scientific studies that challenge the way you view plantlife.

I’ve been an obsessive plant hunter since I was seven years old. Wishing to share this wonder with others, I began running informal classes in plant identification about 17 years ago. This has grown into a quest to get people looking at and identifying wildflowers, in the hope of curing “plant blindness” – the inability to see or notice plants in your own backdrop – which afflicts so many people.

Initially, I taught plant ID classes in person. But when the pandemic hit, I needed an online resource with high-quality images of British plants arranged by family. No such resource existed online, so I decided to create it.

And so began a five-year mission to photograph the entire British flora myself. That process is now close to complete, and the results can be seen on the website I have created.

This photographic quest took me to all parts of the British Isles – to famous rare-plant hotspots like the Lizard in Cornwall, Teesdale in county Durham and Ben Lawers in the Scottish highlands, and from the north coast of Scotland (where the endemic Scottish primrose grows) to the chalk downs of Kent, where many rare orchids can be found.

I did cheat a bit – for example, using living collections of rare plants in Edinburgh’s Royal Botanic Garden and the incredible Rare British Plants Nursery in Wales.

Brownfield havens

Oddly, cities and especially brownfield sites can be havens for biodiversity. Recently, a student and I both collected material from York for a plant ID session. I pottered around pavements and riverside concrete while she cycled to the nearest woodland – but I got more species.

Brownfield sites are often alkaline (from the lime in concrete) and nutrient-poor, both of which encourage plant diversity. This is also why chalk and limestone grassland is so rich in species.

Species that struggle for a foothold among a countryside dominated by agriculture can thrive in such apparently unpromising places. For example, Monktonhall bing, a coal slag heap five miles from the centre of Edinburgh, is home to numerous locally rare species.

The nearby wasteground was equally diverse but is being lost to development – although the rare yellow bird’s-nest plant which fellow scientist Vlad Krivtsov and I discovered there has narrowly escaped destruction, so far.

In some ways, brownfield sites are the silver lining to all the habitat destruction humans have caused. But not all these sites are equal, of course, and it would be wonderful if developers would choose the less biodiverse brownfield sites to build much-needed housing.

Our rare flora

Some species have turned out to be a lot rarer than expected. I made extensive use of maps and data from the Botanical Society of Britain and Ireland, and this showed that species like the downy currant had far fewer sites than I had assumed. This reflects a general trend of decline in our native flora.

The slender naiad appears to have been wiped out in England by sewage discharges, while the endemic English sandwort may be heading towards extinction due to climate change.

Other species, such as the lesser butterfly orchid, have been steadily declining over many decades – probably due to so much of the British countryside being rendered a biological desert by monoculture farming, spruce plantations or intensive grazing. Research shows less-intensive grazing might benefit Britain’s biodiversity.

I was also able to take fine images of rare British species during trips to Norway, Estonia and Corfu. Military and lady’s slipper orchids are all far more common in Estonia than Britain, and in Corfu I found a single roadside ditch with perhaps more adderstongue spearwort plants than the entire UK population.

Most species look similar at home or abroad. But the marsh gentian looked so unexpectedly different in Estonia that I had to track it down again in the UK.

Try it yourself

In late summer, the number of species in flower declines a little, but many large and spectacular flowers remain to be found. Canadian goldenrod, Michaelmas daisy and Indian balsam are all garden escapes, displacing native flora but providing a bounty of food for pollinators.

If you can visit alkaline grassland such as chalk downs, many native treasures await discovery, such as purple autumn gentians and the spiralling flowers of the autumn lady’s tresses orchid. However, almost any site will turn up one or two interesting plants, which my website can help you identify.

It’s true that these days, you can point a mobile phone app at a plant and get a name for it, so why try to teach people identification skills? Well, we don’t learn much when an app or a teacher simply gives us the answer. We learn from getting there ourselves.

My website uses plant families – natural groupings of related species. Just answer a few simple questions about your mystery flower’s number of petals, symmetry and arrangement, and you’ll get a list of families it might belong to. It then generates a picture ID guide, built from my images and comprising only those families, through which you can seek out your plant – all the while, learning to recognise each family of plants for yourself.

In my own quest, a handful of species still elude me – many of them hard-to-identify grasses or ephemeral rarities that seldom appear in the same place two years running. But these are unlikely to concern most amateur plant hunters as there are so many wildflowers to enjoy out there. Try improving your own ID skills at namethatplant.org.

Richard Milne, Senior Lecturer in Plant Evolutionary Biology, University of Edinburgh

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Britain appears to be a nation on the verge of Norman-conquest mania. In July, the prime minister and the French president announced that the Bayeux tapestry – the epic 11th-century embroidery that depicts the 1066 conquest of England – would be loaned to the British Museum in 2026-27.

This makes new BBC drama series, King & Conqueror, which depicts the events leading up to the Norman conquest, extremely well timed. The credits of each episode feature the drama’s title overlaid on imagery from the Bayeux tapestry. But how does the drama compare to that most evocative textile account of the conquest?

I could write at length about how the BBC drama variously depicts and diverges from the tapestry’s version of events. And the extent to which King & Conqueror is consistent with 11th-century written and embroidered sources has been explored by historians elsewhere.

As an art historian who has researched the Bayeux tapestry, it is difficult not to regret the relative darkness and lack of colour in King & Conqueror’s depiction of the 11th century, an age which would in reality have been richly furnished, as the tapestry itself attests.

But it is satisfying to see that the narrative devices that are most effective in this new drama are those also included in tapestry. To varying degrees, both the tapestry and the drama are dramatised retellings of history, a reality most obviously signalled by fact that neither tell a perfectly linear account of the events.

In the tapestry sequencing for instance, Edward the Confessor’s funeral is stitched before his death, shocking the viewer with the pomp of a stately funeral before then depicting his deathbed. Similarly, in episode five of King & Conqueror, we see Harold and his wife Edith kidnapped, bound and held in a wagon under attack from archers. Then the chronology leaps backwards to explain that Harold and Edith have travelled on a diplomatic mission to Normandy, landed in Brittany by mistake, and then been taken hostage by bandits.

An unflinching portrayal of the brutality of battle is similarly used in both the BBC drama and the tapestry to maintain suspense, even when the outcome of the Battle of Hastings is well known.

Violence and fear

Blood and gore are dramatically present in King & Conqueror. But arguably, replacing benign patterns of birds and beasts on the margins of the tapestry with mutilated bodies is an even more arresting way to signal the violent disruption to life caused by medieval battle.

The scale of William’s violence off the battlefield is also more fully captured in the tapestry. In the final episode of the drama, William is shown ordering the plundering and burning of every village they pass through: “We move forward like the wrath of God.”

But the fear such an order would have struck in people of all classes is not so explicitly captured as it is in the tapestry, where the battle is preceded by the depiction of an anonymous woman and child fleeing their home as the Normans set it on fire.

In this sense, the tapestry also gives a greater sense of the effect of a conquering army had on ordinary women, than a drama more concerned with the main characters. So much so, that it makes the BBC’s sexed-up trailer shared on social media bewildering.

Suggestive clips of Harold and William are shown with the text: “Want to be served by a king? Or let him conquer you?” Anyone who had viewed the Bayeux tapestry and seen the fate of women portrayed there, would certainly not wish to conquered by William’s forces.

The porousness of the Channel as a well-trodden diplomatic avenue is a similarly effective leitmotif in both the tapestry and the drama. Boats crossing the Channel are a frequent tableau in King & Conqueror, reaching a crescendo in the final episode, in which the scale of the Norman fleet with its sails raised resembles the white cliffs of Dover.

In the tapestry, boat crossings are shown with equal frequency, though the scale of the Norman fleet is even more evocatively captured by the depiction of its construction: men felling trees to make boats for the invading flotilla. A unprecedented number of boats in the tapestry are then seen crossing the Channel, their overlapping prows powerfully conveying the scale of the invading naval force.

History meets contemporary politics

It is here that the Bayeux tapestry, the BBC’s dramatisation, and contemporary politics intersect. On the day that followed the announcement of the Bayeux tapestry’s loan, Keir Starmer and Emmanuel Macron held a joint press conference in which they announced a bilateral policy engineered to respond to the increase in the number of migrants crossing the Channel from France in small boats.

In King & Conqueror, the series ends with William’s coronation. However, the tapestry itself appears incomplete and terminates abruptly after the Battle of Hastings.

The current leaders of France and Britain have explicitly sought to frame their new policy as a continuation of the tapestry’s narrative, with Macron commenting:

The story is unfinished and nobody knows the end … But this is our work, our duty and our chance … to finish the tapestry and … take the same road as these warriors but with another state of mind … that together we will build a new … common history and create a new era based on culture, knowledge, respect, science and centuries of enlightenment, creations, and … friendship.

There is, of course, an irony to promoting Anglo-French bilateralism through an object that depicts the invasion and conquering of England by the Normans in 1066.

But there is also a poignant, unacknowledged paradox in referencing an object that so evocatively depicts boats crossing the Channel as a means of bolstering policies specifically designed to deter them, and the people they carry. Certainly, it is clear that some visual motifs remain as politically affecting today as they did in the 11th century.

Millie Horton-Insch, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, History of Art Department, Trinity College Dublin

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Since 1945, three-quarters of all global economic growth has been driven by technological advances. Since 1990, 90% of that advance has been rooted in fundamental science, according to Michael M. Crow, president of Arizona State University.

Corporate leaders in the United States understood this decades ago when they urged Congress to back “patient capital” for research – because this type of investment creates openings for breakthrough applications.

Think of the building blocks of our modern economy – wifi, smartphones, advanced cancer therapies, drought-tolerant crops and satellite navigation. These began as basic research, often with no obvious immediate application. Then they became the platforms for whole new industries.

But in Australia, we still treat research funding as a discretionary extra, subject to the ebb and flow of political expediency and annual budgets. Despite decades of speeches, reviews and strategic papers, our investment in knowledge creation and its application has nose-dived.

Today, the Australian Academy of Science released a landmark report that systematically measures our science capability against future needs for the first time.

The findings are blunt. We have gaps – in workforce, infrastructure and coordination – that will cripple our ability to secure a bright future for the next generation, unless we act now.

What did the report find?

The new report maps Australia’s scientific capability and shortfalls across three major areas.

Over the next decade, Australia is facing a demographic change with an ageing population, a decreasing fertility rate, and increasing growth in urban and regional cities.

The second national challenge is technological transformation. In most areas of life, we’re experiencing rapid technological changes. This includes advances in artificial intelligence (AI) that are already changing the shape of the workforce.

The third challenge is climate change, decarbonisation and environment. It’s imperative for Australia to transition to a net-zero economy and become resilient against the impacts of climate change.

What do we need to have in place for Australia to meet these challenges by 2035? Two key factors are science literacy and education, and national resilience. In a world of fractured geopolitics and technological competition, the countries that will thrive are those that can generate and apply knowledge for their own needs, in their own context.

The report has found eight key science areas that will be most in demand by 2035: agricultural science, AI, biotechnology, climate science, data science, epidemiology, geoscience and materials science.

For each of these, the report contains a full dashboard that shows gaps in capabilities – from education to workforce needs, research and development spending, publications and more.

Still not innovative enough

Since 2008, Australia’s spending on research and development as a proportion of gross domestic product has fallen so far behind the OECD average, it would take an extra A$28 billion a year just to reach parity.

In his election speech in 1990, then Prime Minister Bob Hawke issued a warning: being the lucky country was not enough, we had to become a clever country, too.

Today, 35 years on, Hawke’s vision of the clever country remains just that – a vision. Former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull tried to rekindle the impetus in 2015 with “the innovation nation”. However, this year Treasurer Jim Chalmers conceded our economy is still “not dynamic or innovative enough”.

The vast majority of global climate and earth system models have been developed in the northern hemisphere, and we need more work to understand Australian conditions as well as the Southern Ocean.

Our AI capacity is hostage to developments offshore. We import more than we invent in biotechnology, advanced manufacturing and clean energy.

These are not merely academic concerns – they are constraints on our sovereignty, resilience and competitiveness.

We need a ‘reservoir of talent’

But scientific capability is not something you can simply conjure up on a whim. You need a “reservoir of talent”, infrastructure and knowledge that takes decades to build.

Developing a climate scientist, a quantum physicist, or a vaccine researcher takes long-term investment in education, facilities and research programs. Abandoning or under-funding these pipelines for even a few years creates gaps. Knowledge can’t just flow when the tap is turned on if the reservoir is dry.

Today’s report shows the current pipeline and study choices of students don’t match the needs of Australia’s future workforce.

For example, in 2023 only 25.2% of students with a Year 12 qualification studied mathematics to at least intermediate level. Yet it’s a fundamental science discipline for AI.

Similarly, our economy relies heavily on resources and critical minerals, yet Australia isn’t training enough geoscientists.

It’s time for a whole-of-government science strategy, embedded in economic, education, defence and industry policy. The government should use the evidence in this report to address capability gaps and direct resources strategically to better position Australia for the next ten years and beyond.

Thirty-five years after Hawke’s challenge, it’s never been clearer: if we don’t act now, our luck will run out.

Chennupati Jagadish, President of the Australian Academy of Science and Emeritus Professor of Physics and Electronic Materials Engineering, Australian National University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The introduction of television in Australia in 1956 coincided with mass post-war immigration, initially from Britain and Europe, and later from Asia, the Americas and Africa. Both played a significant role in forming modern society.

Our new book, Migrants, Television and Australian Stories, explores this intertwined history across seven decades, through dozens of interviews with screen creatives, technical staff and migrant viewers.

We provide fresh insight into the ways television introduced migrant audiences to the “Australian way of life”, as well as how the screen industry responded to a need for cultural diversity and inclusion.

Migrants were active audiences

Migrants arriving in Australia after the second world war were keen television viewers, despite the relatively high cost of owning a set.

Vietnamese refugee Cuc Lam told us she purchased a bulky secondhand television from a charity shop soon after arriving in Melbourne in 1978. She watched shows such as Play School (1966–) with her young children, picking up English phrases in the process.

The arrival of SBS television in 1980 (a service dedicated to migrant communities) is often heralded as a landmark initiative in Australian multiculturalism.

However, several earlier music and variety program aimed to showcase migrant groups and “exotic” international entertainers. Some examples included ABC’s Café Continental (1958–61) and Latin Holiday (1961).

One 1957 episode of the childrens’ show Romper Room (1953–94) featured insights into Chinese culture (pictured in the header image). This was unfamiliar viewing for most Australians at the time.

From the late 1960s, canny entrepreneurs with links to international diasporas produced shows such as the long-running Variety Italian Style (1972–87).

This commercial program featured music, cooking, travel, sport and documentary segments. It was sold to stations in North America and Europe, where it was broadcast to other Italian migrant populations.

Another such show was the Greek Variety Show (1977–84) produced by Greek Cypriot actor Harry Michaels, who also made the internationally successful Aerobics Oz Style (1982–2005). Michaels told us:

I was selling Greece to Australians, and then I ended up selling Australia to the world.

Representation on- and off-screen

Historically, many Australian-made dramas, comedies and other programs have reduced immigrants and other cultures to crude stereotypes.

In the gritty crime dramas Homicide (1964–77) and Division 4 (1969–75), migrant characters were often portrayed as criminals or victims of crime.

This trend started to change in the 1980s and 1990s. Children of migrants began making their own successful shows that asserted their cultural identities. For example, Acropolis Now (1989–92) centred on the multicultural staff working at a Greek cafe in Melbourne.

Pauline Chan, a refugee of Vietnamese and Chinese backgrounds, worked on the landmark 1986 miniseries Vietnam, which explored the impact of the Vietnam War on a white Australian family.

Despite having worked in Hong Kong’s fast-paced film industry, she struggled to find work after arriving in Australia in 1982. Initially employed on Vietnam as a researcher, the production team quickly realised the value of Chan’s personal expertise. She ended up consulting, acting and working with Vietnamese extras. She said the project “was like going back into the past […] it was a very emotional experience for me”.

Viewing as a family ritual

Jasmina Pandevski, a Macedonian Australian from Wollongong, told us watching Hey Hey It’s Saturday (1971–99) in the early 1980s was a “bit of an event” for her family. Her father would make rice pudding as a special dessert to eat during the show.

World Championship Wrestling (1964–78) was also popular with viewers during its run on Channel 9. It routinely pitted overseas wrestlers against local stars.

Libnan Ayoub, the son of Lebanese migrant wrestler “Sheik” Wadi Ayoub, went as far as to describe it as Australia’s “first multicultural sport”.

Family viewing changed with the arrival of the video recorder. Tala Jovanovski said her parents would source Macedonian videos of dance concerts and films from a neighbourhood shop. While they watched these videos in one room, she and her siblings were more likely watching Home and Away or Neighbours in another, eager to engage with Australian customs and teen culture.

Three siblings of Malaysian–Chinese background told us their conventional Australian children’s television diet was widened by their parents ownership of a video rental store in Brisbane. This meant they would also watch Jackie Chan’s kung-fu films. Now, they enjoy a new ritual of watching Eurovision with their own families.

We found today’s children and young adults of migrant backgrounds prefer the diversity of streaming platforms over commercial television. This corresponds with a wider trend of a preference for streaming.

Inclusion is an ongoing issue

Since the 1980s, a plethora of studies, surveys, forums and reports by media bodies, academics and advocates have suggested Australian broadcast media has been hesitant at best, and racist at worst, in representing cultural difference across scripted and unscripted television.

One 1990 report for the Office of Multicultural Affairs found “mainstream Australian media are neither competent in nor capable of accurately reflecting the diversity of Australian society”.

The situation has improved with gradual gains in access and opportunity for people from diverse backgrounds, along with significant policy changes – but only somewhat.

Actions to ensure diversity in Australian television remain ongoing. Some media creators use humour to critique the process of these well-meaning yet tokenistic efforts for inclusion.

Pearl Tan’s award-winning 2023 podcast Diversity Work, for instance, explores a fictional television writers’ room trying to tick off all its diversity “boxes”.

Tai Hara’s 2020 web series Colour Blind focuses on a hapless white casting agent navigating cultural sensitivities in the modern Australian screen industry.

Our research demonstrates migrants have always been important in producing and watching television. It also traces the continuing complexities of the question: what makes an Australian story?

Kate Darian-Smith, Professorial Fellow in History, School of Historical and Philosophical Studies, The University of Melbourne; Kyle Harvey, Research Fellow, School of Media, Film and Journalism, Monash University; Sue Turnbull, Honorary Professor of Communication and Media Studies, University of Wollongong, and Sukhmani Khorana, Associate Professor, Faculty of Arts, Design and Architecture, UNSW Sydney

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Gee I am lonely sweetheart, it may sound silly having so many men and cobbers around me, but when I say lonely I don’t mean lack of company, I am lonely for you, only you can fill the gap in my heart dearest, as each moment passes I seem to miss you and love you more, I shall never get used to living without you […] in fact I am sure we were meant to be together all the time.

My great-grandfather Bill Wiseman wrote this to my great-grandmother Florence in a letter dated October 20 1944.

Aside from when Bill briefly returned on leave from his service for the 2/48 Battalion of the Australian Imperial Force (AIF), he had been separated from Florence since September 1941. Bill would not permanently return to Florence and their children until his discharge from the military on November 8 1945.

It was a long time to be away from his family, and Bill often reflected on the emotional toll their separation had on him.

Loneliness is a common emotion in letters written by Australian service personnel and their loved ones. Rather than a complete physical isolation from others, this situational loneliness was characterised by the absence of a certain person: one’s partner, parents or children.

As Bill acknowledged, while he was surrounded by “cobbers”, it was Florence who he was “lonely for”.

Separations over oceans

Like other historical events that caused mass displacement and separation, the second world war fostered an almost universal sense of situational loneliness.

Emotional experiences and expressions were often dictated by real physical distance. Methods of travel and communication were significantly limited. It could take months for a letter to reach its destination.

Other circumstances influenced how separated families felt and articulated their loneliness in wartime. This could include factors such as how long they had been apart, whether personnel could return home on leave, the intensity of military campaigns which might restrict mail exchanges, and if personnel were injured or captured by enemy forces.

While letters could never completely substitute for the absent person, Australian military personnel and their loved ones recognised the importance of exchanging correspondence to ease their loneliness.

AIF Sergeant Robert Graham implored his fiancée Jane Melrose to write more regularly, as it improved his morale:

I received your ever welcomed and much needed letter yesterday and it made me feel a lot better + miles happier too. Jane whatever you do pleased write as often as you can […] I feel so depressed when mail comes in and I don’t get any from you. It doesn’t matter who I get mail from I’m still not happy unless I recognise your handwriting on the envelope.

Barbara Welbourn, a soil scientist at the University of Adelaide, wrote to her fiancé, Sergeant David Sheppard, about the “renewal” his letters provided when she was lonely:

Your [76th letter] was waiting for me last night; such a blessed end to the day + so longed for […] I am so dependent, my sweet David on your love, its constant renewal, even more wonderful by letters that I will be adrift in sad seas without them.

Women’s Auxiliary Australian Air Force Aircraftwoman Doris Plummer wrote she was “dying” for news from her husband Private Walter Plummer, who served in the Volunteer Defence Corps.

She wanted to hear about his Christmas, because as it would make her feel closer their family:

Hope you tell me everyone you saw everything you said and did. How many fish you caught, how many times you swam and missing no details. They are the little unimportant things that make me feel I am not so far away.

Patience and perseverance

While loneliness was (and still often is) perceived as a negative emotion, characterised by mental pain and absence, letter writers from the war often discussed how experiencing these uncomfortable feelings ultimately transformed their relationships for the better.

Albert Gerrard, a private in the Australian Army Medical Corps, assured Margaret James that he believed separation ultimately prepared them for marriage:

Three years have not been wasted, I think we’ve both learned a lot. I have anyway, patience, perseverance, and over + above all else, what a loyal little darling you are. It has also knocked a lot of conceit + selfishness out of me. Generally speaking, I’m better for it.

Lance Corporal George Seagrove outlined how he believed the longing he felt for his wife Marjorie made him appreciate the joy she brought him.

In one such letter, George wrote:

This parting, more than anything else, has made me realise how big you have been in my life […] It’s like a soul split in two. When I see anything I always want to rush to my pen and tell you about it. If it is something funny I can hear you laughing because I know you laugh at the same things as I do […] Every day when the mail comes my heart beats a little bit quicker and your familiar handwriting brings a big smile to my face.

Letter writers on the home and battle fronts showed a great capacity to express vulnerability by describing their loneliness.

Through their heartache and anxiety about the uncertainty of their futures, separated spouses realised their love for one another was undeniable.

Emma Carson, Historian of Emotions and Australian Society, University of Adelaide

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The brain has its own waste disposal system – known as the glymphatic system – that’s thought to be more active when we sleep.

But disrupted sleep might hinder this waste disposal system and slow the clearance of waste products or toxins from the brain. And researchers are proposing a build-up of these toxins due to lost sleep could increase someone’s risk of dementia.

There is still some debate about how this glymphatic system works in humans, with most research so far in mice.

But it raises the possibility that better sleep might boost clearance of these toxins from the human brain and so reduce the risk of dementia.

Here’s what we know so far about this emerging area of research.

Why waste matters

All cells in the body create waste. Outside the brain, the lymphatic system carries this waste from the spaces between cells to the blood via a network of lymphatic vessels.

But the brain has no lymphatic vessels. And until about 12 years ago, how the brain clears its waste was a mystery. That’s when scientists discovered the “glymphatic system” and described how it “flushes out” brain toxins.

Let’s start with cerebrospinal fluid, the fluid that surrounds the brain and spinal cord. This fluid flows in the areas surrounding the brain’s blood vessels. It then enters the spaces between the brain cells, collecting waste, then carries it out of the brain via large draining veins.

Scientists then showed in mice that this glymphatic system was most active – with increased flushing of waste products – during sleep.

One such waste product is amyloid beta (Aβ) protein. Aβ that accumulates in the brain can form clumps called plaques. These, along with tangles of tau protein found in neurons (brain cells), are a hallmark of Alzheimer’s disease, the most common type of dementia.

In humans and mice, studies have shown that levels of Aβ detected in the cerebrospinal fluid increase when awake and then rapidly fall during sleep.

But more recently, another study (in mice) showed pretty much the opposite – suggesting the glymphatic system is more active in the daytime. Researchers are debating what might explain the findings.

So we still have some way to go before we can say exactly how the glymphatic system works – in mice or humans – to clear the brain of toxins that might otherwise increase the risk of dementia.

Does this happen in humans too?

We know sleeping well is good for us, particularly our brain health. We are all aware of the short-term effects of sleep deprivation on our brain’s ability to function, and we know sleep helps improve memory.

In one experiment, a single night of complete sleep deprivation in healthy adults increased the amount of Aβ in the hippocampus, an area of the brain implicated in Alzheimer’s disease. This suggests sleep can influence the clearance of Aβ from the human brain, supporting the idea that the human glymphatic system is more active while we sleep.

This also raises the question of whether good sleep might lead to better clearance of toxins such as Aβ from the brain, and so be a potential target to prevent dementia.

How about sleep apnoea or insomnia?

What is less clear is what long-term disrupted sleep, for instance if someone has a sleep disorder, means for the body’s ability to clear Aβ from the brain.

Sleep apnoea is a common sleep disorder when someone’s breathing stops multiple times as they sleep. This can lead to chronic (long-term) sleep deprivation, and reduced oxygen in the blood. Both may be implicated in the accumulation of toxins in the brain.

Sleep apnoea has also been linked with an increased risk of dementia. And we now know that after people are treated for sleep apnoea more Aβ is cleared from the brain.

Insomnia is when someone has difficulty falling asleep and/or staying asleep. When this happens in the long term, there’s also an increased risk of dementia. However, we don’t know the effect of treating insomnia on toxins associated with dementia.

So again, it’s still too early to say for sure that treating a sleep disorder reduces your risk of dementia because of reduced levels of toxins in the brain.

So where does this leave us?

Collectively, these studies suggest enough good quality sleep is important for a healthy brain, and in particular for clearing toxins associated with dementia from the brain.

But we still don’t know if treating a sleep disorder or improving sleep more broadly affects the brain’s ability to remove toxins, and whether this reduces the risk of dementia. It’s an area researchers, including us, are actively working on.

For instance, we’re investigating the concentration of Aβ and tau measured in blood across the 24-hour sleep-wake cycle in people with sleep apnoea, on and off treatment, to better understand how sleep apnoea affects brain cleaning.

Researchers are also looking into the potential for treating insomnia with a class of drugs known as orexin receptor antagonists to see if this affects the clearance of Aβ from the brain.

If you’re concerned

This is an emerging field and we don’t yet have all the answers about the link between disrupted sleep and dementia, or whether better sleep can boost the glymphatic system and so prevent cognitive decline.

So if you are concerned about your sleep or cognition, please see your doctor.

Julia Chapman, Clinical Trials Lead and Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Woolcock Institute of Medical Research and Conjoint Lecturer, Macquarie University; Camilla Hoyos, Senior Lecturer in the Centre for Sleep and Chronobiology, Macquarie University, and Craig Phillips, Associate Professor, Macquarie Medical School, Macquarie University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The federal government has reached a $475 million compensation settlement in an appeal case from the Robodebt class action.

The settlement of the appeal, which is still to be approved by the federal court, would be the largest class action settlement in Australian history.

It is for compensation for the harm caused by the Robodebt scheme, which was found to have been illegal. The scheme and the ministers and public servants involved in it were strongly condemned by a royal commission set up by the Labor government. Robodebt ran between 2015 and 2019.

The scheme involved using automated processes for levying debts, many of which were non-existent or calculated wrongly. The scheme traumatised thousands of welfare recipients.

Attorney-General Michelle Rowland, said the settlement would be in addition to what was paid after the original Robodebt case action settlement in 2020. That comprised interest and repayments of wrongfully-raised debts. It amounted to a $1.2 billion payout.

The latest agreement also allows the court to determine separate amounts for the applicants’ “reasonable legal costs” and for the reasonable costs of administering the settlement scheme.

Rowland said, “Today’s settlement demonstrates the Albanese Labor government’s ongoing commitment to addressing the harms caused to hundreds of thousands of vulnerable Australians by the former Liberal government’s disastrous Robodebt Scheme”.

“The Royal Commission described Robodebt as a ‘crude and cruel mechanism, neither fair nor legal’. It found that ‘people were traumatised on the off chance they might owe money’ and that Robodebt was ‘a costly failure of public administration, in both human and economic terms’.

"Settling this claim is the just and fair thing to do,” Rowland said.

She said class action members did not have to take any action at this stage other than ensure their contact details were up to date with Services Australia.

Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Gee I am lonely sweetheart, it may sound silly having so many men and cobbers around me, but when I say lonely I don’t mean lack of company, I am lonely for you, only you can fill the gap in my heart dearest, as each moment passes I seem to miss you and love you more, I shall never get used to living without you […] in fact I am sure we were meant to be together all the time.

My great-grandfather Bill Wiseman wrote this to my great-grandmother Florence in a letter dated October 20 1944.

Aside from when Bill briefly returned on leave from his service for the 2/48 Battalion of the Australian Imperial Force (AIF), he had been separated from Florence since September 1941. Bill would not permanently return to Florence and their children until his discharge from the military on November 8 1945.

It was a long time to be away from his family, and Bill often reflected on the emotional toll their separation had on him.

Loneliness is a common emotion in letters written by Australian service personnel and their loved ones. Rather than a complete physical isolation from others, this situational loneliness was characterised by the absence of a certain person: one’s partner, parents or children.

As Bill acknowledged, while he was surrounded by “cobbers”, it was Florence who he was “lonely for”.

Separations over oceans

Like other historical events that caused mass displacement and separation, the second world war fostered an almost universal sense of situational loneliness.

Emotional experiences and expressions were often dictated by real physical distance. Methods of travel and communication were significantly limited. It could take months for a letter to reach its destination.

Other circumstances influenced how separated families felt and articulated their loneliness in wartime. This could include factors such as how long they had been apart, whether personnel could return home on leave, the intensity of military campaigns which might restrict mail exchanges, and if personnel were injured or captured by enemy forces.

While letters could never completely substitute for the absent person, Australian military personnel and their loved ones recognised the importance of exchanging correspondence to ease their loneliness.

AIF Sergeant Robert Graham implored his fiancée Jane Melrose to write more regularly, as it improved his morale:

I received your ever welcomed and much needed letter yesterday and it made me feel a lot better + miles happier too. Jane whatever you do pleased write as often as you can […] I feel so depressed when mail comes in and I don’t get any from you. It doesn’t matter who I get mail from I’m still not happy unless I recognise your handwriting on the envelope.

Barbara Welbourn, a soil scientist at the University of Adelaide, wrote to her fiancé, Sergeant David Sheppard, about the “renewal” his letters provided when she was lonely:

Your [76th letter] was waiting for me last night; such a blessed end to the day + so longed for […] I am so dependent, my sweet David on your love, its constant renewal, even more wonderful by letters that I will be adrift in sad seas without them.

Women’s Auxiliary Australian Air Force Aircraftwoman Doris Plummer wrote she was “dying” for news from her husband Private Walter Plummer, who served in the Volunteer Defence Corps.

She wanted to hear about his Christmas, because as it would make her feel closer their family:

Hope you tell me everyone you saw everything you said and did. How many fish you caught, how many times you swam and missing no details. They are the little unimportant things that make me feel I am not so far away.

Patience and perseverance

While loneliness was (and still often is) perceived as a negative emotion, characterised by mental pain and absence, letter writers from the war often discussed how experiencing these uncomfortable feelings ultimately transformed their relationships for the better.

Albert Gerrard, a private in the Australian Army Medical Corps, assured Margaret James that he believed separation ultimately prepared them for marriage:

Three years have not been wasted, I think we’ve both learned a lot. I have anyway, patience, perseverance, and over + above all else, what a loyal little darling you are. It has also knocked a lot of conceit + selfishness out of me. Generally speaking, I’m better for it.

Lance Corporal George Seagrove outlined how he believed the longing he felt for his wife Marjorie made him appreciate the joy she brought him.

In one such letter, George wrote:

This parting, more than anything else, has made me realise how big you have been in my life […] It’s like a soul split in two. When I see anything I always want to rush to my pen and tell you about it. If it is something funny I can hear you laughing because I know you laugh at the same things as I do […] Every day when the mail comes my heart beats a little bit quicker and your familiar handwriting brings a big smile to my face.

Letter writers on the home and battle fronts showed a great capacity to express vulnerability by describing their loneliness.

Through their heartache and anxiety about the uncertainty of their futures, separated spouses realised their love for one another was undeniable.

Emma Carson, Historian of Emotions and Australian Society, University of Adelaide

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The Albanese government has announced 20,000 home care packages will be brought forward to be delivered before the end of October – immediately after opposing doing so in the Senate.

The Coalition, Greens and crossbenchers passed an amendment to aged care legislation moved by ACT independent David Pocock.

The vote went through without a division, but the government recorded its opposition.

The new Minister for Aged Care and Seniors, Sam Rae, had been under pressure in the House of Representatives this week over the huge waiting lists for packages, a position made worse by the delay of the implementation of the new aged care system from July to November.

According to the latest figures, there are 121,000 people waiting to be assessed, and nearly 109,000 waiting for packages. The government admitted to the latter figure in the Senate on Wednesday.

Minister for Ageing Mark Butler announced soon after the Senate vote that there would be 20,000 home care packages brought forward for release between now and the end of October, after which the new aged care system starts.

Between November 1 and December 31, 20,000 packages would be put into the system, he said. In the first six months of next year, the remaining 43,000 packages would be rolled out.

Butler said this reflected “an agreed position” between the government and the Liberals, “the two parties of government”. He said there would be some additional cost in bringing the rollout forward.

He flagged this cleared the way for the government’s legislation to get through the Senate this week.

The opposition said Rae had repeatedly claimed the figure was “around 87,000 people waiting” at the end of March, rather than providing the updated figure.

Oppositon leader Sussan Ley and aged care spokeswoman Anne Ruston said in a statement, “Labor promised 83,000 new packages from 1 July 2025, but instead decided to withhold support – despite the sector and the Department being ready to deliver them. Because of Labor’s delays not a single new home care package has been released this financial year.

"As a result, the priority waitlist has blown out to more than 108,000, a 400% increase in just two years, whilst wait times have tripled.”

Pocock said: “The government should have never delayed these additional Home Care packages. My amendment to release additional packages got support in the Senate today despite the Aged Care Minister’s opposition.

"Now the Health Minister has stepped in and announced the government will release the 20,000 additional home care packages the crossbench has been calling for since June.

"This is a huge win for community advocacy and will make a huge difference to older Australians but there is still so much more to do.”

The opposition said Rae was excluded from the government-opposition negotiation over the changed arrangements.

Asked at question time why he had not given the updated 109,000 number to the House of Representatives, Rae pointed to a longstainding process of verification.

Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

After 85 years of continuous publication, Meanjin, Australia’s second-oldest literary journal, is closing. Editor Esther Anatolitis and deputy editor Eli McLean have been made redundant and the final issue will appear in December. Melbourne University Publishing (MUP), which has housed the magazine since 2007, has cited “purely financial grounds” for the decision.

The closure has been roundly condemned by writers across Australia, including Jennifer Mills, Anna Krien, Claire G. Coleman and Sian Prior, along with former editors including Sophie Cunningham, Jonathan Green and Sally Heath.

“The loss of Meanjin is devastating news for Australian writers and readers,” Mills, a Miles Franklin shortlisted author, wrote on Bluesky. “Always meant so much to see my work there. Some of my best experiences of being edited.”

Award-winning writer Anna Krien told The Conversation:

As an outsider, clearly I don’t have a detailed script of what went on behind closed doors – but the public statement that this turn of events is a financial decision is laughable. I highly doubt Meanjin, in its entire 85 years, has ever made money.

Krien said Meanjin was “a literary journal for emerging and established writers to practise and experiment with form and craft, to say the unsayable and yes, the trite as well. Its very existence was an expression of valuing critical and creative endeavour in literary form.”

“Disgusted” Noongar writer Claire G. Coleman, writing on Bluesky, called Meanjin’s closure “cultural vandalism of the highest order”; she pointed out the journal is older than the Sydney Opera House.

Founded in Brisbane in December 1940 by Clem Christesen, Meanjin is not just a magazine, but an important cultural institution whose pages recorded and provoked national conversation and debate for the best part of a century.

In 1945, the journal moved to Melbourne at the invitation of the University of Melbourne, where it found stability and national reach. For decades, Meanjin has provided one of the most vital stages for fresh new forms of Australian writing and cultural commentary.

Its issues have featured work by major Australian writers, including Helen Garner, Alexis Wright, David Malouf, Judith Wright, Patrick White and A.A. Philips, whose 1950 essay on the topic of “cultural cringe” gave a generation of readers an enduring name for the unease of colonial self-doubt.

In a statement, MUP chair Warren Bebbington said the board “found it no longer viable to produce the magazine ongoing”. He said “the two part-time staff of Meanjin were not involved in the decision”.

Crikey quoted from an internal email sent to staff by MUP chief executive and publisher Foong Ling Kong, which said in part, “the decision was not made lightly”. “The financial pressures of publishing a literary magazine in today’s world, however, are inescapable and considerable, and the readership is shrinking.”

Louise Adler, chief executive of MUP when Meanjin was placed under its administration, told Crikey:

Given the coffers of the University of Melbourne, one would have thought the paltry amount Meanjin requires on a yearly basis was small coin for the intellectual contribution the magazine, at its best, can make to our literary culture.

Former Meanjin editor Sally Heath, now a nonfiction publisher at Allen & Unwin, told The Conversation the journal should be recognised “as a valuable part of the University of Melbourne’s cultural portfolio, alongside the Melbourne Theatre Company and the Ian Potter Museum”.

When creative writing and publishing courses are booming and Australian Studies under threat, the merit of such an independent magazine should be celebrated and seen as an important part of the reading and writing landscape.

Why was Meanjin so important?

Meanjin’s name derives from the Yuggera word for the land on which Brisbane now stands. From the outset, Meanjin was conceived as a forum for serious literary debate and as a conduit for cultural engagement. To read through Meanjin’s archive is to trace the evolution of modern and contemporary Australian intellectual life.

Across its lifespan, the journal was also, notably, a platform for First Nations authors. Wiradjuri writer and editor Jeanine Leane was appointed poetry editor in 2023 and the magazine has published the work of Oodgeroo Noonuccal, Tony Birch and Ellen van Neerven – who has an essay planned for the final edition.

Publishing researcher Alice Grundy, managing editor of Australia Institute Press, likens the reason given for the closure to “measuring the success of aged care on how much revenue it generates for the economy”. Literary journals, she told The Conversation, are “key cultural infrastructure”.

So many Australian books have grown from essays or stories in literary journals. Sian Prior is one of those authors: her 2014 debut book, Shy: A Memoir, began life as a personal essay in Meanjin. “I am deeply upset and disappointed that the publishing company of my alma mater, Melbourne University, has failed to recognise and secure the vital role of Meanjin in the fragile and eternally under-resourced Australian literary ecosystem,” she told The Conversation.

Editors who work on journals such as these can develop their careers and financially support their writing through those jobs.

“Our literary magazines are facing attacks on multiple fronts, a "deeply shocked” Stephanie Holt, Meanjin editor from 1998 to 2001, told The Conversation. “That they keep going at all is often down to goodwill and unpaid or underpaid labour on the part of so many.”

As we grapple with the impact of AI on our reading, writing and thinking, they offer the important prospect of a trusted forum for the thoughtful, singular and defiant voices we are in danger of losing.

Cunningham told Crikey Meanjin’s closure “reinforces my sense that universities are no longer spaces that support or nurture literature or the arts in this country”. In the last several years, she said, universities have “shown themselves unable to manage robust debates or the complexities of freedom of speech.”

‘Managed destruction’

Last year, Tom Doig, author of a book on the Hazelwood mine fire disaster, won the Hilary McPhee Award for his Meanjin essay revisiting the disaster a decade later. He, too, questioned the reason for Meanjin’s closure. “Almost no literary journals” make money, he pointed out – and nor are they expected to.

Emmett Stinson, senior lecturer in creative Writing at Edith Cowan University, told The Conversation the news is “highly distressing”.

If the most prestigious university in Australia will not fund our most prestigious literary journal, then it makes you question whether or not universities actually care about Australian culture.

The timing of Meanjin’s closure comes on the heels of Writing Australia’s July launch, with considerable fanfare and significant funding: more than A$26 million over three years, plus ongoing annual support and the appointment of Australia’s first National Poet Laureate.

The coexistence of these two developments – a state-sponsored national literary initiative on the one hand, the managed destruction of a historic literary periodical on the other – invites a difficult, if necessary question.

If Writing Australia is to truly support and promote the sector (to borrow its official phrasing), what does it say about our literary culture when one of the sector’s most venerable organs is simultaneously allowed to vanish?

One wonders how, in the years to come, the sudden winding down of the journal will be remembered – as a minor footnote, or a revealing commentary on what the very idea of “supporting literature” has come to mean?

Meanjin was, in part, about “articulating the Australian cultural moment” and ensuring Australia could speak to itself – critically, insistently, sometimes uncomfortably. Its closure raises the question of whether we – as a society – are still interested in hearing that voice.

At this moment in Australian life, is cutting-edge literature more welcome in practice than in principle?

Once the final issue of Meanjin has been published in December, a lively 85-year thread of our cultural conversation will fall silent. Whether that disquieting hush says more about our universities, our elected officials or ourselves is something all Australians will have to decide.

Alexander Howard, Senior Lecturer, Discipline of English and Writing, University of Sydney

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

A year ago, Google faced the prospect of being dismantled. Today, artificial intelligence (AI) and a new court judgment has helped it avoid this fate. Part of the reason is that AI poses a grave threat to Google’s advertising revenues.

“Google will not be required to divest Chrome; nor will the court include a contingent divestiture of the Android operating system in the final judgment,” according to the decision.

Google must share certain data with “qualified competitors” as deemed by the court. This will include parts of its search index, Google’s inventory of web content. Judge Mehta will allow Google to continue paying companies like Apple and Samsung to distribute of its search engine on devices and browsers. But he will bar Google from maintaining exclusive contracts.

The history of this decision goes back to a 2024 ruling by federal judge Amit Mehta. It found that Google maintained a monopoly in the search engine market, notably by paying billions to companies including Apple and Samsung to set Google as the default search engine on their devices.

Almost a year later, the same US judge issued his final ruling, and the tone could not be more different. Google will not be broken up. There will be no choice screen on new phones.

The nature of the search engine market, where more users generate more data, and more data improves search quality, made it impossible for competitors to challenge Google, the court found in 2024.

The 2024 ruling itself was controversial. While high quality data enables a dominant firm to extract more profit from consumers, it also allows it to provide a better service. Decades of research in economics has shown that determining which effect is more important is not straightforward.

At the time, the US Department of Justice deemed the issue so serious that it considered breaking up Google as the only viable solution. For instance, it suggested forcing the company to sell its web browser, Google Chrome.

The government also proposed forcing device manufacturers to offer users a choice of search engines during set up, and compelling Google to share most of its data on user behaviour and ad bidding, where advertisers compete in auctions to get their ads shown to users for a specific search query or audience. These so-called “remedies”, measures Google would be required to implement to end its monopoly, aimed to restore competition.

Limited sharing

So, what has changed in a year to so radically change the perception of Google’s market dominance? The main answer is AI – and specifically, large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT, Claude, and Google’s own Gemini. As users increasingly turn to LLMs for web searches, Google responded by placing AI-generated summaries at the top of its search results.

The way people navigate the internet is quickly evolving, with one trend reshaping the business models of online companies: the zero click search. According to a Bain & Company survey, consumers now default to accepting AI-generated answers without further interaction. The data is striking: 80% of users report being satisfied with AI responses for at least 40% of their searches, often stopping at the summary page.

Threat to ad revenue

This AI-driven shift in consumer behaviour threatens not only Google’s business model but also that of most internet based companies. Advertising accounts for roughly 80% of Google’s revenue, earned by charging companies for prominent placement in search results and by leveraging its vast amount of user data to sell ad space across the web. If users stop clicking links, this revenue stream evaporates.

More importantly for this ruling, the market Google once monopolised may no longer be the relevant one. Today, Google’s primary potential competitors in search are not Microsoft Bing, but AI models like ChatGPT, Claude, and Perplexity. In the global race for AI dominance, the outcome is far from certain.

From an antitrust standpoint, there is little justification for penalising Google now or forcing it to cede advantages to competitors. What would be the benefit for consumers of forcing Google to accept the £24.6 billion offer from Jeff Bezos’ Perplexity AI to buy the Chrome browser?

In essence, the judge acknowledges that Google monopolised the search engine market for a decade but concludes that the issue may resolve itself in the years ahead.

This situation echoes the first major monopolisation case: Internet Explorer. For years, European and US regulators battled Microsoft to dismantle the dominance of its web browser, which was bundled with the then-dominant Windows 95 operating system.

By the time all appeals were exhausted, however, the monopoly had vanished. Internet Explorer was partly a victim of the rise of smartphones, which did not rely on Windows. The new king in town was a newcomer: a certain Google Chrome.

How you view the economic and political power of tech giants will shape which lesson you draw from this story. An optimistic view I suggested (with the economist Jana Friedrichsen) is that winner-takes-all markets can intensify competition through innovation. In such markets, incremental investment is not enough; to challenge Google, a competitor must offer a vastly superior product to capture the entire market.

Precisely because they ruthlessly defend their monopoly positions, tech giants show competitors that the potential gains from radical innovations are massive. The pessimistic view, however, is that years of dominance have left these firms largely unaccountable, which could embolden them in future.

Renaud Foucart, Senior Lecturer in Economics, Lancaster University Management School, Lancaster University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.